Sarah Webster’s Trampoline World Cup Win Is First For A U.S. Woman In Eight Years

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by Chrös McDougall

Sarah Webster (C) celebrates on the podium after winning the women's individual title at the 2022 AERE FIG World Cup on May 29, 2022 in Rimini, Italy.

 

Sarah Webster became just the second U.S. trampoline gymnast to win a world cup event when she claimed the women’s individual title Saturday in Rimini, Italy.
Since trampoline came under the governance of USA Gymnastics in 1999, in preparation for the discipline’s Olympic debut the following year, only Charlotte Drury had previously won a world cup event for the U.S. She won a 2014 competition in Minsk, Belarus.
The 23-year-old Webster, from Lafayette, Louisiana, also partnered with Olympian Nicole Ahsinger to take second in the women’s synchronized event in Rimini. 
Fellow American Jessica Stevens also made the finals in the individual women’s event, while Cody Gesuelli and Aliaksei Shostak each made the individual men’s final. Cody Gesuelli partnered with Elijah Vogel to make the men’s synchronized final.
“I’m feeling pretty excited right now,” Webster said in an interview released by event organizers. “I just won the world cup and this is also the first time I’ve ever made a finals at a world cup, so I’m very, very happy right now.”
Webster, an alternate for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team, has competed internationally several times since 2015, including at the 2017 and 2018 world championships. She’s coming off two wins in domestic competitions earlier this year.
In Rimini, she scored 53.40 to hold off Leonie Adam of Germany, who scored 53.24.
“I think it was just my mindset,” Webster said. “I came into finals not really having any expectations. I told myself to just go have fun, and that helped me to not be so nervous, and I think that’s what really helped me.”
In the synchronized event, she partnered with Ahsinger, a 2014 Youth Olympian who went on to compete at the last two senior Olympic Games, to score 45.86 points. Anano Apakidze and Teona Janjgava of Georgia won with 46.43 points.


Chrös McDougall has covered the Olympic and Paralympic Movement for TeamUSA.org since 2009 on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc. He is based in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

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