When it comes to competitive skipping, Canberra punches well above its weight. 26 of the 140 athletes on the Australian skipping team are part of Canberra’s only jump rope club, the Jazzy Jumpers. They're preparing to compete in the world jump rope championships in Japan in July.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00It's a sport on its way to becoming an Olympic event, but for Aussie athletes preparing for
00:10the World Championships, it's common to encounter surprise from people who've never heard of
00:15competition skipping.
00:16Usually they're pretty intrigued actually, because it's not super well known.
00:19They usually ask a lot of questions about it, but they're really interested most of
00:23the time.
00:24Normally say, I used to do it at school when I was little, or can you do the crossover,
00:31which we call a cross, or the crisscross, and they're normally asking a lot of questions.
00:38The sport has grown in popularity in Australia since the 1990s, and a task force was created
00:44in 2024 with the sole purpose of getting the sport to the Olympics.
00:49Competitors are judged on a technical routine with a skipping rope.
00:53What we usually do is, like, practice the tricks, and then do it to music, and then just keep
00:58practicing it until it's like in our heads.
00:59It is super, super nerve-wracking, but it's also really exciting.
01:04I think it's such a cool thing, you get to go on with your teammates, that obviously you've
01:07been training with for ages, you just really get to showcase exactly what you've been
01:11doing.
01:12And sometimes we like putting our own little touches to our routines to add in our own
01:16little tricks.
01:17The team of 26 is the largest group to go to Worlds in the club's 15-year history.
01:21So the judges are looking for clean routines, they're looking to make sure everyone's got
01:26their required elements, and also the difficulty of the routine.
01:29So every trick has a difficulty level, and the higher the difficulty, the less mistakes,
01:34the better your routine's going to score.
01:38With only months to go, training has amped up.
01:40But 12-year-old Kira Naden has also found the time to raise money for her flights.
01:46We started raising money for bottles and cans, and our neighbours offered us a lot of bottles
01:51and cans, and we actually got a lot of money from that.
01:54So far we've raised about $1,000 plus, so we're almost there.
02:01Skipping a beat as they prepare to take on the world's injured hair.
02:06That was so tiring.
02:08And we're going to have a Sierra!
02:12But where do we need and have a lot of钱?
02:16In Fu Dia, what gives us a lot of缶, is, and it's a little bit better.
02:17So here we go, what is the need to make sure our team is working on the autopsy of the
02:22world's hundred and fifty-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five-five.