For many years the world has known that Austin White is the best of the best in his sport. Yet he still hadn’t fulfilled that dream of proving it by being named World Champion. He has team gold medals, and three world silver medals, but not that all important individual world champion title. Until this year when White finally broke through and became the 2015 World Champion in Double Mini Trampoline.
Nov 28th White was competing in the finals in Odense Denmark at the 24th World Championships for Trampoline and Tumbling (gymnastics). Before the competition White had announced that he would retire from the sport after the completion of this competition. So this would be his last chance to finally claim the gold, and the whole world knew it. However his competition was not about to go easy. This was one of the largest attended championships with athletes from 40 plus countries all determined to take home the title. On top of that the quality of competitors was far beyond what anyone would have imagined. During this final round three world records were set. An athlete from Portugal beat white’s previous world record by doing the highest difficulty in history (which included a quadruple somersault). Then a competitor from Russia competed the first ever double back somersault with 5 twists. On top of that the defending world champion stuck a nearly perfect pass. White knew that nothing less then perfect would win him that title that he has been waiting so many years to achieve. So White decided to compete the hardest pass he has. All eyes were on when he started his run and a silence came over the crowd as he executed his pass to absolute perfection. The crowd went crazy, and in the process White broke his own world record for highest scoring pass in history, and more importantly took home the World Gold Medal.
“It really was the greatest sport moment I have ever witnessed in gymnastics.” Said World Elite Gymnastics coach Peter Dodd. “Everyone was pulling for him to win it but no one could have ever imagined it would take so much to do it. And to see that many world records made in one rotation of competition was just overwhelming.”
So now White can retire really having achieved everything. Team Gold, Individual Gold, and multiple world records. On top of that he is also coaching many world team members and will continue to do so at World Elite Gymnastics in Rancho Santa Margarita.