Jack Penny

After participating at the highest level in Trampoline Gymnastics for seventeen years, Jack Penny retired from the sport as a competitive athlete in 2017 after representing Australia 20 times in events including the Australian Youth Olympic Festival, World Age Group Championships, World Cups and World Championships.

Jack’s first world age championships were in 2005 in the Netherlands, before making his senior world championships debut in France in 2010 where he would finish 5^th in the Double Mini Tramp.

In 2006 Jack was awarded Gymnastics Australia’s, National Athlete of the Year.

Establishing numerous Tasmanian records, Jack competed at the 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017 world championships under national coach and former world champion, Brett Austine.

Jack performed a personal best at the final Olympic Games trial event at the 2016 Australian championships, qualifying first and finishing second behind South Australian Blake Gaudry and was a member of the Australian Shadow Olympic Squad for the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

In his final event at the 2017 world championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, Jack finished eighth in the men’s synchronised trampoline.

Jack exemplifies qualities that have kept him involved in the sport through a variety of mediums, including obtaining a FIG judges accreditation, which sees him judging at international events since 2016; becoming heavily involved in the administration side of gymnastics through the Gymnastics Tasmania Board, including becoming President of Gymnastics Tasmania in 2022. Jack is also member of the Olympic Advisory committee formed through alliance with Gymnastics Australia.

Jack has not only been a trail blazer for the sport of Gymnastics in Tasmania, but also a role model and leader in sportsmanship for Australian athletes. Looking back over a successful career, since 2002, it is obvious to see that Jack’s impact and reputation for sporting behaviour, fairness and encouragement reaches far beyond the Tasmanian Gymnastics community.

Jack Penny is a worthy addition to the Tasmanian Sporting Hall of Fame.