CSU Ag Science student Tom Norman takes out gold as world skipping titles kick off

Tom Norman, 21, is competing against the world's best skippers at the 2023 World Jump Rope championships in the US state of Colorado this week.

The ag science student is not the only member of his family competing at the event, with his father Murray competing in the over 30s category and two sisters Rebekah and Belinda also taking part.

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The eight-day event will see Norman, his family and other members of the Australian team take on countries from across the world in a mix of solo and team jump rope events.

Norman revealed he and his team mates have already tasted success on day two of the competiton, winning a gold medal in the four-person double dutch freestyle event, alongside Christian Maskito, Lyric McDougall and his own sister Rebekah.

"It's been going great so far," Norman said.

"I never expected to win medals and while I've won medals in Australian championships a few times, I've never placed at the world championships, so that was very exciting. I even broke one of my personal bests."

Due to the event being held at Colorado Springs - a city that lies almost 2000 metres above sea level - Norman said altitude training was necessary.

"Athletes definitely feel it when they get less oxygen to their lungs," Norman said.

"So that preparation beforehand was very important."

Growing up in Sydney, Norman took up jump rope professionally while in primary school and competed in his first junior world championships at Hong Kong in 2014.

Since then, he has competed at world championships every two years and even competed virtually when COVID forced the Canada world titles online.

Describing the sport, Norman said it's kind of like a mixture of skipping, dancing and push-ups.

"It's a combination of gymnastics with handstands and push-ups and things like that, with a little bit of dance and rope manipulations such as wrapping the rope around your body, letting the handles go and catching them again," Norman said.

He said it's also great to be competing alongside his family at the event.

"[My sister] Rebekah is in my coach's box when I'm doing my individual event, so it's really encouraging to have her cheering me on," he said.

"My dad has accompanied me to every world championships I've been to... so it's exciting to be there with my family."

For aspiring world-class skippers out there, Norman has some great advice.

"Talent or natural ability plays a very small part in the sport," he said.

"When I first tried out for jump rope in Year 3, I didn't actually make the team... let alone the competition team.

"But I practiced and I practiced and the next year I made the team."

Norman said it's all about training.

"It's all training and hard work. There's no way to get better at skipping except to skip," he said.

As an added incentive, he said skipping is also great for your heart.

"The amount of exercise you get doing a half hour run is equivalent to ten minutes skipping," Norman said.

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