By Mallory Warren
Mike O’Donnell has been doing trampoline tricks and back-flips since he was 16.
O’Donnell got a trampoline in his backyard at his home in Newmarket when he was eight, but didn’t really get into doing the tricks until he was in high school.
“One of my friends from high school ended up buying one when mine broke and once he did we wanted to start learning more and making trick videos,” he says.
Now 19, this first-year engineering student hopes to get back into his favourite sport when the weather warms up.
O’Donnell loves learning new tricks and hopes to work on more tricks on the ground this summer.
“Doing a backflip on a trampoline took a couple years [to learn],” he says. “But from when I started learning how to do one on the ground it only took maybe a week.”
O’Donnell says its harder to do a backflip on the ground and it’s definitely more nerve wracking.
“Sometimes flips can be pretty scary to do like I was terrified before I learned to backflip,” he explains, “and it’s pretty dangerous as well.”
Thankfully O’Donnell hasn’t gotten himself in any major accidents or falls. He and his friends practice bailing out of a jump or flip to avoid injury.
For the future, O’Donnell anticipates working on more ground tricks, rather than on the trampoline, because he thinks they look cooler.
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