The Etobicoke Guardian

"Who would have thought that jumping on the bed as a kid could lead to this?" said his father David, noting his pride at the decade of hard work and dedication that culminated in his son's acceptance onto Team Canada.

The 21-year-old, who denied being a bed jumper with a laugh, departed for China yesterday to fulfill his dream of competing against the best of the best for Olympic Gold. It was a journey, he told The Guardian last week, that began at age eight when his parents enrolled him in gymnastics lessons, where he soon found out about and signed up for classes in the fledging sport at Airborne Trampoline summer camp in Woodbridge.

"It's still a pretty small sport and it still has a lot of growing to do, but after every Olympics, trampoline clubs get flooded with people who saw the Games," he said. "It's definitely catching on."

From those first few lessons, Burnett's interest in the sport soared as he worked his way up through the ranks, earning a place on the junior national team at age 16 and placing impressively at both national and international competitions, and finally winning a spot on the Olympic team alongside Rosannagh MacLennan and two-time Olympic medallist Karen Cockburn. All are coached at Skyriders Trampoline Place in Richmond Hill under the auspices of owner/head coach Dave Ross.

While his achievements have garnered Burnett a name in the trampoline world, his is hardly a household name - at least so far. But with the popularity of his sport on the rise, and great things expected of Burnett in Beijing, that may soon change.

"Jason has made great improvements in the last two years, and he's one of 10 men that I think can make it into the top eight," Ross said of his student's Olympic prospects. "If he makes it that far, he'll have the hardest routine, so we're hopeful he'll medal."

After weeks of intensive training coming off his bronze medal win at the trampoline World Cup in Arosa, Switzerland in late June (his fourth career individual World Cup medal), Burnett said his training schedule had just begun to pare down last week in advance of his big trip to China.

"I pretty much know who I'm going to be competing against and have competed against them before," he said, noting his confidence going into his first Olympic Games. "I'd say I have a good shot. At the World Cup there was only one of the top competitors missing from the competition, and I got the bronze medal, so yeah, I hope I medal again."

The trampolining competition is made up of two routines - one compulsory to show judges a mastery of the basic skills, and one freestyle that lets competitors show off their creativity and courageousness at tackling ever-increasing degrees of difficulty. Each routine, Burnett said, takes a mere 20 seconds to complete.

"It's just two seconds per jump... but it's been a full-time commitment for me for the last year," he said, noting that he's taken the year off school (he plans to study Fire Protection Engineering Technology at Seneca College) in order to ready himself for this trip to China. "I'm not really nervous, I'm pretty calm. I'm ready for it."