The tumbling and trampoline world championships were held in Denmark this weekend, and American Austin White won the gold medal in the double mini-trampoline event. You can see his winning performance in the GIF above. It’s a “triffus-pike, 1/2-in triffus-pike”—in plain language, the first bounce is three flips with a half twist in the air, the second is three flips with a total of one full twist—and it was landed so solidly that Trampoline Pundit declared, “Drop mic.”
But while White seemed to defy death to soar in the air, his bounce was actually officially limited for his safety. In this video from the International Gymnastics Federation, a German trampoline engineer explains that official competition trampolines are tested to see how much rebound a steel ball gets when dropped from a height of 4 meters. The rebound must be between 3.1 meters and 3.35 meters, the engineer says. Sure, they could build a bouncier trampoline, but “probably we would see more accidents.”