Up and down day for Team BC in trampoline

By Drew Todd, Team BC Mission Staff

The men’s and women’s individual trampoline event took place Tuesday with all four Team BC athletes competing.  Kyle Carragher (Port Coquitlam), finished in eighth place on the men’s side while Poppy Quinlan (Maple Ridge), led the way for the women with a fourth place finish.  Rounding out the team results were Curtis Gerein (Kelowna) in ninth and Emily Schmidt (Kamloops) in 10th.

Compared to standard international rules, the Canada Games competition format is much different for trampoline.  Whereas flight time is generally part of a competitor’s score, this factor has been removed from the judges’ decisions in order to ensure more balanced gameplay across provinces.  Additionally, only one athlete from each province is eligible to qualify for the evening finals – an unfortunate determination for Team BC who would have qualified four athletes instead of just two.

In qualifying, Carragher laid down arguably his best routine ever and surprised many by claiming Team BC’s lone entry into the top eight over Gerein.  In the finals however, a slight misstep near the beginning of the routine took him out of medal contention.

As for the women, Quinlan performed at her highest level, topping teammate Schmidt in qualifying.  Quinlan’s finish of fourth was an outstanding result for her considering she was only added to the team less than a week ago as a late injury replacement.

Wednesday will signal the end of the trampoline competition at the 2015 Canada Winter Games with the team mixed event starting at 4:30 p.m.

See Canada Games live streaming at www.canadagamestv.ca and follow live updates on Twitter from @GoTeamBC with the hashtag #TBCTrampoline.