How Rosie MacLennan took over the world
Last year, Olympic gold. This year, world championship gold.
Back-to-back victories at the world’s most prestigious competitions have not only established Rosie MacLennan as the top female trampolinist on the planet, but also earned the Gymnastics Canada star Athlete of the Week honours.
MacLennan capped her week at the 29th Trampoline Gymnastics World Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria by standing atop the podium in the women’s individual event. She had advanced from the semifinals in fourth place, after posting the highest difficulty score amongst the competitors.
Rosie MacLennan
Once in the final, MacLennan matched that difficulty score (15.400), which was a full point higher than that of silver medallist Zhong Xingping of China. She was also able to increase her execution score and had the greatest time in air of the finalists, to give her an overall score of 56.285 and the gold medal by a margin of 0.120.
Remarkably, MacLennan had competed with a pair of sore knees, caused by a crash landing in training just over a week earlier.
“After the fall I had back home I just focused here on taking one day at a time, focusing on each routine and giving everything I had,” said MacLennan in a statement. “I figured if I had anything left in me after the final routine, then I didn’t try hard enough.”
This is MacLennan’s first world championship title, coming after her Olympic triumph in London last summer where she was Canada’s only gold medallist.
This is also the first world championship gold medal by a Canadian trampolinist since Karen Cockburn in 2003. MacLennan now has a full complement of world championship medals, having won individual bronze in 2007 and 2010 followed by silver in 2011.
MacLennan returns home from the world championships with a pair of medals, having also won silver in the non-Olympic team competition with Samantha Smith and Samantha Sendel.
Check out Rosie’s gold medal performance:
