Bryony Page interview: Overcoming mental and physical challenges to win Tokyo Olympic bronze and world championship gold

The 31-year-old from Sheffield, twice an Olympic medallist but never a world champion, had only decided a week before the world championships in Baku last month that she was in a strong enough place mentally and physically to include something so audacious that few women have ever executed it on such a grand stage.

The skill – as jumps are referred to in trampolining – is known as the Miller, named after Wayne Miller, the first athlete to execute it.

To you and I, that’s a triple-twisting, double-back that Page decided to go with as the finale to her 10-skill routine.

“I’d worked on it before but never done it in competition,” says Page, who was not even comfortable putting it into her routine in Tokyo three months earlier.

“I had to put it on hold while I was training for the Olympics and then it was a quick turnaround to try and fit it in to the world championships.

“I only made the decision a week before the competition that if I made the final I would try and perform it.

“Any nerves I had I’d got over because the last two worlds I’d failed to make it past the semi-finals.

“So when I got to the final it was my intention to perform the Miller, but you have to make the decision during the routine whether you’re going to go for it or you’re going to hold back.

“Knowing the routine was going well, I probably made the decision at skill eight, that way if it’s not going well you can take it out.

“You can make the decision as late as skill nine, but once you do make the decision it’s about committing to it.

“I was determined to fight for it because it’s been an ambition of mine to fit that skill in for quite a while.”

Page’s conviction, her self-belief, proved well-founded as she executed the Miller beautifully.

The judges agreed, the difficulty and execution marks they awarded her took her above the competition to ensure that finally, the girl who started trampolining seriously aged nine, who represented Great Britain at senior level for the first time aged 19, was at last a world champion as she enters her fourth decade.

“It feels very surreal even now, it hasn’t really sunk in. I’m just really happy,” Page tells The Yorkshire Post.

“I keep replaying my final routine, how that felt.

“For me to make the final in itself was an achievement because I hadn’t made one for a while.

“When I’m competing I don’t always hear the crowd, and there were no spectators in Baku because of Covid, but it was the trampoline community watching – all the delegates etcetera – so for them to watch me do that routine, and the Miller, was very satisfying.

“I could hear them at the end cheering, and that was a good feeling, knowing I’d given a good performance to those who had supported me and watched me for so long.”

The world title caps an extraordinary year of success for Page, who won a bronze medal in the Olympic trampoling final in Tokyo, adding to the silver she won five years earlier in Rio.

Medals two Games apart speaks to an athlete’s longevity, but even in her early thirties, and in the midst of the greatest run of success in her career, she was still finding out things about herself.

“It was another boost to my confidence to achieve that medal in Tokyo, especially on the competition day I had, it proved to be a very big learning experience,” says Page, who moved to Sheffield from Cheshire in 2010 to study at university, and has made the city her home ever since.

“I found it more of a challenge to get in the right mindset for the competition, I’d had a lot of doubts and put a lot of pressure on myself. They all started running through my head at pace and it was hard to control those thoughts.

“Because there wasn’t a crowd as well, that was more of a challenge for me. I found it harder to get out of my own head.

“I did learn a lot about myself at the Olympics, how I can perform routines to a high standard and be able to stand on that podium despite what my brain was telling me.”

Overcoming her own demons in Tokyo, when measured against conquering a new skill under the highest of pressure, means it is difficult for Page to reconcile which achievement in 2021 is the greater one.

“Probably the world championships, because of the final routine,” she says, before adding: “but then the Olympics only comes round every four years, or five years’ this time, and the whole experience of the Olympics is so extraordinary and I learnt so much from that competition.

“I put so much more pressure on myself so to be able to deal with that, perform and win back-to-back medals, it’s an achievement I’m really proud of.

“And achieving my first title at an international stage is something that’s really special for me.”

Paris is the target now, the next Olympics just two-and-a-half years away.

In the meantime, it is back to Sheffield Performance Trampoline and Gymnastics Club at Graves Leisure Centre in Sheffield, the training base she has called home for 11 years.

It is there where she is taught by long-time coach Paul Greaves, while also teaching youngsters herself as she looks to gain her coaching qualifications.

“Trampolining is so very accessible,” she says. “There are trampoline parks, outoor trampolines, but the number of clubs and coaches are increasing around the country. More opportunities for more people to try it out. That’s exciting to see.”

The facilities at Graves offer a snapshot of how a sport that was only added to the Olympic programme in 2000 has grown.

“When I first arrived we used to hire a sports hall and had to put the trampolines up before a session, and take them down again afterwards,” she recalls.

“Now we’re in a purpose-built trampoline facility at Graves; the lighting is great, the trampolines are top of the range, we’ve got a foam pit to practice our skills.

“Having that facility here in Sheffield has already made a huge difference.”

There is little respite for Page. After Tokyo, she was back training within a fortnight and it was similar after Baku.

A change to the way trampolining championships are scored – removing the aggregate from two qualifying rounds and taking the best individual score – means athletes are rewarded for the braver they are, so a different mindset is required.

“It now gives you scope to try out harder routines without that risk of not making it through,” says Page, who in Tokyo and Baku this year showed she has no fear pushing the limits of what she is capable of.