This Frankston teen was jumping dangerously close to the ceiling. Now he’s set to make history in Paris

Australian trampoline gymnast Brock Batty was bouncing dangerously close to the ceiling at his usual gym when he realised he needed to switch training venues to realise his Paris 2024 dream.

How high was the roof at Cheltenham Youth Club, where he’d been practising his flips and tricks since outgrowing the backyard trampoline in Frankston? “Not high enough!” 17-year-old Batty said with a laugh after his place on the Australian gymnastics team for the Olympic Games was confirmed on Tuesday. “I think about seven metres.”

17-year-old trampoline gymnast Brock Batty is bound for Paris 2024.

Batty still trains at Cheltenham three times a week but for his other sessions he travels by public transport to Melbourne’s State Gymnastics Centre, where he can get more serious air, springing eight to 10 metres high.

Some may find that kind of height daunting, but Batty’s self-described obsession with flipping, with the help of springs, started the moment he touched a trampoline.

“I was eight years old, [maybe] a bit younger, and I just loved jumping on the backyard trampoline every day and trying to teach myself new tricks and flips,” he said.

A year later, Batty signed up at his local gym and soon began competing. His mum, Zoe, wanted to find a club where her son could safely practise the tricks he was trying to teach himself at home.

“[I was] a bit of an adrenaline seeker, I guess you could say,” he said.

Batty has qualified for the Paris Olympics. He is the youngest athlete to qualify for the event.

Australia has a proud history in trampoline gymnastics, which was first included on the Olympic program for Sydney 2000 where the acrobatic Ji Wallace won a silver medal. When Batty competes in Paris, he’ll be the youngest Australian athlete to compete at the Olympics in the event’s history.

The year 11 Frankston High School student is part of Australia’s 13-strong gymnastics team, the biggest the country has sent to an Olympics.

Australia will send its largest gymnastics team to an Olympic Games this year.

Australia’s top gymnast, Commonwealth Games champion Georgia Godwin, was ruled out in heartbreaking circumstances when she ruptured an Achilles tendon at training ahead of the national championships last month. Leading trampolinist Blake Rutherford was also eliminated from squad selection after suffering vertebrae fractures in a training incident.

The team will feature a record 11 women and 11 debutants. Four-time Commonwealth Games medallist Emily Whitehead will compete at her second Games in the artistic gymnastics alongside Kate McDonald, Ruby Pass, Breanna Scott, and 28-year-old Emma Nedov, who will make her Olympics debut after coming out of retirement.

Emmanouela Frroku, 17, will compete in the rhythmic gymnastics along with Jess Weintraub, Phoebe Learmont, Saskia Broedelet and Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva.

The focus of the gymnastics in Paris will be on American superstar Simone Biles, who is coming off a historic ninth all-around crown at the US national championships.

Batty had a breakout year in 2023 after stumbling in his routines twice at the 2022 world championships. He won junior titles both as an individual and as part of a synchronised duo at last year’s Birmingham world championships, edging out Chinese rival Dong Wang with a score of 57.160.

“I just felt I had so much motivation to come back twice as hard for 2023 and give it another crack and see if we can get it done,” he said. “I just kept my head down the whole year, worked hard, and obviously the results showed for themselves. All the hard work paid off.”

Batty’s favourite move is called the Miller Plus, which famous gymnasts often use to cap off their routines. “It’s two backwards flips and four twists in it. It’s a fun one for me.”

Before Tuesday, Batty had only told two school friends he was about to become an Olympian, but his cover was blown with the team announcement at the MCG.

“It’s happened so fast, and I honestly reckon a day hasn’t gone by where I haven’t thought about this happening since I started at nine years old,” he said.

He knows the Olympics will be a step up in competitiveness.

“I’ve been in situations where I have a lot of pressure, [to] learn new things, obviously nothing as extreme as this. But I just kind of take each minute as it comes,” said Batty.

“It’s just so satisfying seeing all this self-belief and hard work pay off. And, like, dreams do come true if you work hard enough for it.”

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