Birmingham: Katherine Driscoll secures Trampoline place in the 2012 London Olympic Games
25-year-old trampolinist, Katherine Driscoll, earned her country a place in the 2012 London Olympic Games, as she attained the seventh position in the FIG Trampoline and Tumbling World Championships, Birmingham.
Driscoll was one of the performers scheduled to compete earlier in the competition. She started her routine at 1100 GMT. Minor mistakes in her performance for the second qualifiers brought down her total score to a 98.765.
“Without a doubt it has been the most horrific day of my life,” Driscoll exclaimed.
She had to endure the excruciating experience of watching the best of gymnasts come to the competition floor and attempt to outdo her performance for a length of eight hours.
At the end of the day she stood ninth in the competition. She was only one position short of making it to the qualifying top-eight group.
Call it Driscoll’s luck or impeccable Chinese competence. Either way, Driscoll got her wish granted, as it turned out that four of the top eight gymnasts were from China.
Since nations can only send two competitors to the 2012 London Olympic Games at most, Driscoll moved up to become the seventh of the lucky top-eight qualifiers.
Driscoll is at the top of the world rankings in trampoline. However the ranking events do not see many top trampolinists (for example the Chinese and Canadian contenders) which makes this assessment of her abilities, somewhat, biased.
The World Championships hence, was a far more competitive arena for Driscoll to negotiate her talents in, and left room for second-guessing. Regardless, she did well for herself.
Ana Rente (Portugal) and Ayano Kishi (Japan) were two highly competent trampolinists who had a good chance of striking Driscoll off the consideration list for the Olympic Games.
They were the last two gymnasts to perform, and left Driscoll sobbing with relief when they finished in with scores lower than hers.
Laura Gallagher, another British contender in the competition, was also elevated by two positions but was not as lucky as Driscoll and ended up on the periphery of the top eight where Driscoll had originally finished (ninth place).
“To be so close and miss out by one place is devastating. It’s horrible, but I’m really pleased for Kat,” said the 22-year-old athlete. Gallagher lost Great Britain’s chance at having a maximum of two female trampolinists by 0.155 marks.
However, this does not confirm Driscoll as the representative of Great Britain in the London 2012 Olympic Games. Olympic trials will take place next spring to decide which trampolinist goes through.
Driscoll, Gallagher and Emma Smith’s scores added up to give Great Britain the third place overall. Hence, the three are set to compete together in the team finals on day two of the tournament (Friday, November 18).
The British Gymnastics Performance Director, Tim Jones, was not entirely happy with the performances and had mixed feelings about the day.
“Whilst not distracting from Kat’s performance in making the final, which was a terrific achievement, it probably was not the performance everybody was looking for,” Jones said.
Clearly, Driscoll was Great Britain’s star for the day, being the only representative of the country to be walking out of the National Indoor Arena with an Olympic trampoline place.
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