Ji Wallace Interview
Another amazing interview is coming to you today as we speak with our first ever Gymnastics athlete in the legendary Ji Willace to talk about his incredible career! We learn from Ji how the quintessential Aussie activity of jumping on a trampoline in his backyard lead him to becoming one of the most decorated trampoline athletes of the 90s, as well as how watching the 1980 Moscow Olympics harboured an Olympic ambition from him from a very young age. We also learn about his entire Olympic experience during Sydney, and why qualifying nearly a year out from the games helped him take in more of the unique Olympic atmosphere that was in Australia at the time. Added to this his memories of the night he won silver, why he believes so many people remember his silver win so fondly and just how close he came to becoming an Olympian in another sport, it’s a jumpingly great chat that you won’t want to flippin’ miss!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast coming to you today for another interview episode, a very exciting one for you today. Our very first taste of the sport of gymnastics. We speak to Australia's only ever Olympic medallist in gymnastics, Ji Wallace. Jumping Ji from Sydney 2000. Everyone remembers him winning the silver medal in trampolining. Very much, nearly won the gold. Was in the gold medal position right up until the final competitor. And very, very exciting. You'll hear me talk to Ji in this interview that I remember watching it live. And still, one of the most memorable moments for an Australian perspective from the Sydney 2000 Games. And this is a great chat with Ji. Goes into every amount of detail about his career, talking about how he got into the sport, the scene in the 90s, the moment he realised that he could become an Olympian, sort of a childhood dream of his, since he was very, very young. And just the whole experience of Sydney 2000, and why he was in a very unique position when it came to qualification, and was able to live that whole experience, Australians felt in that year of 2000 in the lead up to the Olympics. So you're going to love this chat. It's a great one, and you're going to hear it right now. Here's our chat with Australian Olympic trampolinist, Ji Wallace.
BEN WATERWORTH: So honoured to have our next guest here on Off The Podium today. He is the only ever Australian to medal in the sport of gymnastics at the Olympic Games. The only ever Australian to win a world championship in the sport of gymnastics. The only ever Australian to hold a world record in the sport of gymnastics. The only male gymnast to appear on a Woolworth sticker in a sticker album, and the first ever gymnast to appear on Off The Podium. He's ticking off all the firsts here. It's a pleasure to welcome Ji Wallace to the show. Ji, first of all, pleasure to have you on the show, mate. How's it going?
JI WALLACE: Thank you, man. How are you? Thank you very much for having me. I'm looking forward to this chat.
BEN WATERWORTH: I am very much looking forward to this chat. I just mentioned to you off air that I was 13 during the Sydney Olympics, and I remember vividly watching you on that trampoline, because I think most Australians remember it, because for a lot of people, it's probably our first ever taste of seeing trampolining at a massive, big international competition, because it made its debut at Sydney, of course. But does it make you feel old when somebody like me says I was 13 watching you back then?
JI WALLACE: I, too, was only just a young chap.
BEN WATERWORTH: You were, yes.
JI WALLACE: I was 23, which was the prime of a sort of a trampolinist's career. And you are right, it was the first time that trampoline had been able to show what we've got in front of a global audience, and what a debut it was. The man that actually introduced trampoline to the world, he was actually there. He was at Sydney, and he was so proud that we got to show trampoline the way we did, and the way the crowd responded to trampoline. The fact that it was at home for us in Sydney, and the little Aussie fellow that nobody knew was doing really well, I mean, played right into the hands of what made that night so special for so many people. I mean, it was a long time coming, but there was so special. And lots of people, even today, say it was one of the best nights of their life. And I always say, imagine if it was one of the best nights of your life, how it may have been for me.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly, because it's an interesting sport, trampoline, because I mean, for most Australians, we grow up jumping on a trampoline. It's just kind of a rite of passage. We've all got one in our backyard at some point. So how do you go, I can imagine, from doing that in the backyard there in Brisbane to all of a sudden eventually going to the Olympics? I mean, how do you take that sort of hobby and take it to more of a professional level when you want to take this up as a proper sport?
JI WALLACE: Well, it is really the quintessential thing to do in an Australian backyard. I mean, there are two things, one to jump on a trampoline and one to swing around on the old hill's hoist, you know? So, actually, both of those, I used to jump off the trampoline onto the hill's hoist, swing around, back onto the trampoline. And my mum actually took me up to the local PCYC because I started jumping off the roof of the two-story house that we were living in. So, if you're a nutter, I'm going to make sure that you know how to fall correctly or get yourself out of trouble. Because I was teaching myself flips in the backyard. I mean, I lived in a very small street with a couple of other neighborhood kids, and they were up doing trampoline gymnastics up at the local PCYC. And I taught myself flips in the backyard, and they went, okay, you just got to go up there and do it up there. Just learn how to do it safely. And I did that, and it sort of really took off from there. Now, one of my first ever memories is of the Moscow Olympics in 1980. And my parents say that I've always wanted to go to the Olympics from then. But trampoline was never that direct route because it was only debuting in Sydney. So I could never have known that as a little kid, but that was my goal. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to go to Russia. I wanted to go to Moscow with the dancing bear. And I remember gymnastics. I remember some of the athletics and some of the swimming. I remember seeing that on TV. And it was burned into my brain that I was always going to be competitive, I think, but I wanted to compete at the highest level in sport. And it just so happened to all fall my way in Sydney.
BEN WATERWORTH: What was that Moscow song? That Moscow, Moscow. That was a great song there.
JI WALLACE: I don't know whether that was the Olympic theme or the theme to the KGB, but...
BEN WATERWORTH: Right. Might be connected.
JI WALLACE: I'm into bears, so it was the name bear that I remember.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mishka, wasn't it? Was that the name of the bear from Moscow? Wasn't it? Mishka?
JI WALLACE: I think they're all called Mishka. Mishka is just elegant anyway.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, we'll go with that. That kind of works the best there. So I mean, if you sort of had that ambition, sort of that young age sort of Olympics, there are other sports that you were sort of doing at the same time that maybe... Because obviously, as you're saying, trampoline wasn't part of the Olympics then, were there other sports that you were kind of looking at to potentially get towards an Olympics one day?
JI WALLACE: I think I tried everything at some stage, and I was sort of getting quite good at soccer at the same time. But growing up in the southern suburbs of Brisbane in Logan, my parents couldn't afford to continue to take me to both. So it came down to, okay, you've got to choose, what would you like? And I think by that stage, I'd made a state team, a Queensland state team with trampoline. And I got to travel, and I got to come back to school and talk about it. And it was something different. It was really something different. It wasn't just hanging out with my mates, ride my bike, playing in the creek kind of thing. So being good at that sport from a young age really was the thing that tipped me into trampoline, into choosing trampoline. And from their state team, national team, world championships, world cups, travelling all the way, all the time, it was just fantastic. I mean, it kept me out of a lot of trouble, let me tell you. But it was just fantastic to be involved with so many cool, fun people that did it for the right reasons. I think there's so many sports people out there that do it for the fame, for the money, or they want to do tennis because of, you know, to make money or gold, whatever it might be. But all of us, we had to pay for everything. We had to pay for our tramp shoes, our training times and our training allotments, all the travel, our outfits, our track suits. Everything had to be paid for by us. So it was a real hardcore trampoline loving fun group. And because I was good, I was sort of hanging out with the kids that were older than me. So I grew up really, really fast. And I really enjoyed that. I still, even to this day, I prefer hanging out with people that are older than me. And I like to learn from those people, just like I did back when I was learning trampoline.
BEN WATERWORTH: When you go from the funness of jumping off your roof onto a trampoline in your backyard to all of a sudden going a little bit more serious to eventually making state teams. Is there a moment when the fun turns into that competitiveness when you realise that, hey, I'm actually quite good at this. I'm making state teams and national teams. I mean, is there kind of that switch moment in your mind that goes from one point to the other?
JI WALLACE: I don't think there's an actual switch moment. The only time that I can ever remember that being is when we actually got confirmation of trampoline going from a backyard sport into a fully professional Olympic sport. I mean, that switch was massive. But as a junior athlete or as a kid that was learning it, there was never a time where I went, okay, I'm going to take this seriously, because I sort of outgrew the local PCYC very fast. And one of the best coaches in Australia invited me over to coach, to jump with her. And that was 35Ks away. So that was a big ask for my parents to do that two or three times a week. But they did it absolutely 100%, no problem. But it was a big ask for them. So there was no switch that I went, I'm gonna do this 30 hours a week. But it was just a phase that had just continued to roll, continued to roll. And now I remember being at the National Championships in Perth in 1990 and going home and talking about being in Perth where everybody that was at school sort of maybe spent their holidays on the Gold Coast. Yeah, so it was a real unique opportunity for me to explore the world that I knew that people that I was at school with weren't getting that opportunity.
BEN WATERWORTH: What was the state of the sport like then? Sort of you mentioned that the moment it was kind of announced as an Olympic sport, I mean, I believe the World Championships of trampolining have been around since the 60s. So I can't imagine it was always a sport that was trying to get into the Olympics. So that moment where finally it got into the Olympics, was it kind of prior to it being an Olympic sport, was it still a prestigious sort of event or kind of how was it looked upon, I guess, in the gymnastics community before it became an Olympic sport?
JI WALLACE: So I don't think gymnastics were really terribly interested in trampoline sports. So we actually had to fold as an international organisation to become a part of gymnastics, to actually enter into the Olympic Games, because I'm not quite sure how it works now, but obviously we've had BMX and skateboard and surfing and everything get included, karate get included into the Olympics. But it actually takes away from the number of athletes competing in other disciplines. Because there's so many athletes, they actually say, we're not gonna actually expand the Olympics because you can just keep going and going and going and going and going, right? But to that really solid sort of 10,000, 12,000 athletes, so they've actually got to take it from elsewhere. So we only actually got given 12 spots to begin with. We actually compete with 16 now, but we've only got 12 athletes that actually went to the first Olympic Games. So it actually had to come from other apparatus in gymnastics. So they actually lost positions for their athletes to include trampoline. But until then, we're at world championships. I remember being at world championships in Portugal, and the stadium was packed, but it was a world championship final. Even the prelims, it was still the neighbours and the family, and at national championships here in Australia, it's still the neighbours and the family and the dog, and a bit of tumbleweed goes down the track because it's not, everybody's jumped on a trampoline. Everybody's got a trampoline story, but not everybody realizes it's so spectacular. And that's why every four years, when it comes around onto the TV at the Olympic Games, it makes my heart pound with pride that people actually go, oh my God, how high are they jumping? How do they do what the divers do in one jump? We do it 10 times, one after the other. Everybody was saying Simone Biles was so fantastic. She's doing a pike two and a half off the, well, we do triple back somersaults in the pike position at the end of seven other skills on a rebound floor. We don't just do one cartwheel. There's seven other tricks that go before these skills. They do two skills on the horse, or we do two skills on double meaning we're doing triple somersaults two times.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
JI WALLACE: What we actually can achieve in trampoline is so spectacular to watch. And lots of failed trampolinas go on to other sports, i.e. diving, i.e. aerial skiing. They've all come from a trampoline basic background.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which we've talked to a few aerial skiers and divers, and it's always fascinating to kind of hear that short moment. I think we had Laura Hinkson on Just Before Tokyo, and she was mentioning it was like a 1.9 seconds they've got from a 10-metre platform to do those tricks. But as sort of you're explaining, like it's just, it's so fascinating to watch how you guys are doing those constant tricks. Because it's also, I can imagine, about momentum. It's keeping that height so that on your second jump, you can keep doing those flips and kind of maintaining it. Because otherwise, if you stuff up slightly, you're gonna lose that momentum, and maybe your triple becomes a double, and then you're not gonna quite get the scores you're after.
JI WALLACE: Well, absolutely. And I'm pretty sure everybody, anybody that actually watched the Olympic trampolines this time, they saw many people crash. Because you're one slightly part off. You've got to think so fast. It's not like, oh, I'm in a race, and I've got to race a bit harder to make it past the person that I can see in front of me. Because you're competing against the judges. You're competing for scores. Everything has to be executed perfectly. And if you're slightly off, wow, can you really tell the difference? And let me tell you, there's lots of people. I remember my grandfather watching synchronized trampoline way back when. And of course, when you get out of synchro, it becomes kind of obvious, and you can really see. And he was sort of the quintessential couch judge going, oh, I don't know how they can, that's not synchronized, like we're off, even just every part of trampoline takes precision and the speed of what you're thinking, what has to happen, and how you have to respond to do what the divers do again, again, I get 10 times in a row. It's so fast.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is there much transition the other way around? Do many divers go, oh, fuck, 1.9 seconds is too easy. I want to make it more difficult. Let's go over to trampolining.
JI WALLACE: I can tell you that there's no Olympians that are at the Olympics that have come from diving, but I can certainly tell you that there's lots of divers that go off and tramp.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right, right, well, yeah, well, not great. You want to keep them, but, you know, the other way around. So, I mean, I'm always fascinated. We talk a lot to our athletes on the show about sort of that mental aspect and kind of just on what you were saying there. I can imagine that the physical training is obviously very important, but how do you train mentally to kind of keep yourself in that zone because you've got to, you know, execute those tricks perfectly in such succession and keep that momentum going? I mean, kind of where does a mental aspect come into when you're training for an event?
JI WALLACE: Well, obviously, it's one of those sports where you've got to peak at the right time and you have no room for error. It's not a team sport where you have a bad moment and you've got another 80 minutes to make it up or whether you're become very good friends with Kerry Potts and Nat Cook. And we've always spoken about the fact that they got to play six games, and it's the time you can keep playing. If you're still within that two-point range, you keep playing. We're on trampoline. We've got 20 seconds to get our routine out. And if you're lucky enough to make the finals, you get to do it three times. So literally, trampolining at the Olympics is gone in 60 seconds.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow. Yeah. That movie is all about trampoline, let's be honest. It's not about stealing cars. That's all it is. So during the 90s, you go into World Championships, you debut in 92, you win a World Championship in 96, world records, everything along those lines. At what point was it announced that it was being an Olympic sport in Sydney? And do you remember thinking, well, okay, going back to my dream of watching Moscow, this can actually become a reality?
JI WALLACE: I remember sitting straight upright in September, going to national championships when Sydney actually got the games back in 93. I remember where I was, I remember it exactly. And it sort of really played into the narrative of, I'm just about to go to the national, leave the house today, to leave for the national championships. I could actually be doing the same thing in seven years time, going to the Olympic Games in Sydney at home. So that was pretty cool. But the fact that you just keep trying and keep moving, no matter where the sport is headed, because we were an Olympic recognised sport, the possibility was always there. Obviously, there are a thousand hoops that you got to jump through as a sporting organisation, but you just got to keep trying. And if it comes off, it comes off, and it doesn't, it doesn't. But it just so happened that Trampoline made all the right moves at all the right time. Now, it was Olympic recognised back in 92, I believe, and then it wasn't accepted as a full-blown competitive Olympic sport until 98. So, at five years of not knowing whether it was ever be an Olympic competitive sport, but we were sort of edging closer and closer and closer each time. And I think the fact that the World Championships in Sydney in 1998 was so well run, so well attended, and so spectacular that the gymnastics governing body had no choice but to include it as a part of the gymnastics sports umbrella and then the IOC take it on as a fully competitive sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: Talk about stars aligning, you know, you got that Olympic dreams and it just happens to be in your home country. I mean, God, you couldn't, you'd script that any better.
JI WALLACE: Absolutely, you could not storyboard this out better than wanting to go to the Olympic Games from the age of three, watching it in Moscow, in Moscow, remembering the songs and then following it. I used to wag school to watch the Olympic Games, wherever they were held every four years. I used to wag school when the Commonwealth Games were on. Yeah. I was running under the bed when my dad came home one day and I had to stay there half the day. And then I'd go climb back out and turn the TV on because the Glasgow Olympics, the Commonwealth Games were on. So I've been an Olympic and sports crazy nut for quite some time. And the fact that Sydney aligned perfectly when I was in my competitive prime and the fact that I was coming off the back of doing very well in double mini trampling and moving across into the more streamlined trampling that you see today. You're right. Talk about the stars line. They could not have been scripted better.
BEN WATERWORTH: How is that transition going from double mini to what we see at the Olympics? It sounds like there's a big difference. Double mini sounds quite small, but I'm not sure of the difference. Can you explain what that is like going from double mini to the Olympic size?
JI WALLACE: Well, it's kind of like going from it just to take a gymnastic apparatus for just the vault, running up to the vault and doing a cartwheel on and then a big trick off and landing. That's kind of what double mini is. You do two skills and it's very powerful, very fast. Because the double mini is such a smaller version of the bigger trampolines, you don't get anywhere near the hype, but you're still trying to do the same amount of skills and same amount of moves. And then you've got to come down from that height and land on a crash pad and then stick. So the muscle activation and the speed of your muscles, the faster you try, everything works very differently in double mini than what it does in the elongated 10 skill trampoline sports. So in double mini, you want to be fast, you want to be strong, and you want to be powerful. And in trampoline, you want to be high, and you want to be elegant, and you want to be elevated. And everything wants to be fast and floaty. So it's very, very different. So my convert, I was very good. I was actually ranked 13th in the world at the Sydney World Championships two years before the Sydney Games. And then I was actually ranked fifth in the world. So again, I was on that trajectory, moving across to the more prestigious trampoline side of things. And it just, again, it all just worked out that that was where I was supposed to be at that time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Was it just a natural progression then kind of just training, kind of focusing on that more so than the double mini that led you to kind of climbing up the rankings or kind of going back to your saying about that was sort of you were peaking as an athlete at that point, that that was kind of naturally where you would have expected to go to as an athlete at that point.
JI WALLACE: Well, I don't know whether I would have stopped doing double mini if the Olympics weren't on the horizon. I think that was sort of, that was very much a catalyst because there was an international coach being brought in. World renowned, world class coach. And he said, you've got to stop double mini. We can't do double mini. We've got to concentrate on trampling. So I don't think any of those cards would have fallen that way if we weren't going to the Olympic games. So I think it was a fairly easy decision for me to go, okay, well, I've done that. I've been very good at that. And the Olympics are on the horizon. I'm going to do whatever I can or whatever needs to happen to make sure that I'm on that podium come Sydney 2000 in September. September 23, actually, I remember.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, I'm sure you remember the time, the smell in the air. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was on the radio and the car on the way to the venue, all that kind of stuff. Do you remember when you qualified though? Do you remember when you got that official confirmation that you were going to the Olympics and you were an Olympian?
JI WALLACE: Yes, well, because it was our first time as a sport going to the Olympic games, there was no way to understand how to make the qualifications happen. So all they said was you have to qualify at the world championships the year before, which was a good 11 months before the Olympics. So we were actually the first athletes to qualify and be named at the world championships the year before. And I happened to come fifth, but you could only take one per country. So I actually qualified in fourth position. So they actually named you that far out. So I actually knew that I was going to the Olympic Games from October in 19, and nobody could take that away from me. So I had such a focus on doing, well, I didn't have to worry about if I'm going to qualify or not. It wasn't going to push me. Nothing was going to take me off the track of being an Olympian. So we were in the very unique situation of knowing that that was what we were going to be doing on a specific day, at a specific time, in the year 2000.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's incredible because I know you've been speaking to some of our winter athletes recently. I mean, some of them don't qualify until basically two weeks before the Olympics. And here you are 11 months out. And I can imagine too, I mean, we've talked recently, you mentioned Kerry Potash, we had her on recently, and we talked about sort of how Australia was in the lead up to the Olympics, how much Australia got behind the Olympics, and everyone got involved. I mean, how were you in that aspect, knowing that you were going to the Olympics and this whole country throughout the year 2000? I mean, we all remember when the torch arrived at Uluru and kind of, you know, everybody was getting excited. I can imagine this adds to the excitement, knowing you're competing there as well.
JI WALLACE: Yeah, absolutely. I got to enjoy the ride. I didn't have to worry about whether I was gonna even qualify or not. I got to enjoy that. And the Olympic torch actually ran past the house I grew up in.
BEN WATERWORTH: And my mum was...
JI WALLACE: So I actually went back and the local council actually painted a picture of me on the telegraph pole out the front set of the flame, run past my house. It was about 10 metres from the trampoline that I used to jump on. In the time, ran past my face on the pole outside the house I grew up in. I was there watching it go by. So again, the script just really laid out bit by bit right in front of me. And the fact that in the year 2000, we knew we were going to the Olympics. So no matter what happened that year, whether I failed to compete, whether I got it, I was still going. There was somebody in backup position, but if I couldn't take the stage or the competition floor on that night, there was one person there, but everything else was all up to me. So it was a really focused effort on how do we get me there? How do we make sure that I'm standing on that podium? We were going for gold. Any athlete that tells you that they don't want to win, they're just happy to get there, is lying.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly.
JI WALLACE: Everybody, we all want to win. That's why we do what we do, for no other reason, except wanting to stand on that dais, have a gold medal placed around your neck, and listen to the Australian National Anthem being played.
BEN WATERWORTH: But before I get to sort of the night, I mean, I always love to hear from athletes about their experiences, like little things like arriving at the village, the opening ceremony, kind of soaking in all of that. I mean, do you remember sort of just taking all that in before competition, or were you in such competition mode that it was something that you really weren't focusing too much ahead of your event?
JI WALLACE: Again, I got to ride the Special Olympic Waves. So we were competing day eight, which is right smack bang in the middle of the Olympic Games. So we caught a bus. That's how important we were. We caught a bus to the village to check in. And then went through the whole check in process. And I think the Sydney Games were so special because everybody remembers them as being the friendly games. But also it was before all the crazy security that came in after 9-11. So we were still able to walk around freely. We were still, there wasn't that hard edge to everything. So, and of course, being at home in Australia, everybody's kind of lackadaisical anyway. So I got to experience the first eight days of the Olympics as a serious athlete. But because I got to compete on day eight, I got to go to the opening ceremony. Because if you go, if you're competing day one, day two, day three, you tend not to go because it is so taxing. And of course, everybody at home is going, why wouldn't you go? You would go for sure, even if you were first up the next day. But it's a 10-hour journey, and it's so exhausting that I really do now understand why people in day one, day two, day three, don't go. The fact that I was day eight meant that I could go, we could go and actually soak up that atmosphere. Then from day one to day seven, day eight, we got to do the whole Olympic thing. Eat right, sleep right, recovery right, training, got to do all of that. And then of course, because I did very well, the next eight days were just an absolute mindblow. It was so much fun. So I got to do the serious side of the Olympics. And then I got to do the super fun side of the Olympics. So again, speaking to you, it just brings it all back. The fact that this script was written this way, or it's turned out this way, is just so perfect. Because lots of people that compete day one, they don't get to go to the opening ceremony. They might not do very well. And nine times out of ten, it costs your federation a lot of money to keep you in the village. I'll send you to the village, actually. So they tend to kick you out. And I know the Australians got out early because of COVID, but that's a normal process at Olympic Games, unless you're the host. And the host, you're going to, your team is going to stay there the whole time. But if you go, if you go that way, you don't get to the opening ceremony, you're day one, you don't do very well, you're on the next plane home. So the fact that I got to do everything the way you kind of wanted to do it and then did really well and then got the last part to do the way I really wanted, it's just so special.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I can imagine too, just how well obviously Australia did during Sydney, it kind of spurs you on. And I mean, I remember watching just the crowd that night. I mean, I was watching in my lounge room in Tasmania, I can't imagine what it's like there that night. But because you performed so well, you're in the gold medal position right up until the final competitor, Mr. Russia. We're back to Russian again, they're Mr. Gymnastics. So I mean, what's it like in a sport where I guess deep down, Ji, you are kind of hoping people fail. You're kind of watching people come after you going, okay, oh great, well, I've got at least a bronze. Oh, great, I've got at least a silver, come on, you bastard, fail, oh shit, silver, but I'll take it. I mean, it must be weird to kind of watch on and hope people fail.
JI WALLACE: I don't know whether it's fail, but obviously you want you if you if you're standing on the top of that dice, you want to know that you beat everybody at their best. So obviously, when people do fail, it's very disappointing for them. And always you're going to take it because in the heart of the competition, that's what you're there for. And if you can't perform in that competition, then that is unfortunate, but I'll take it. But because the reason why trampoline went off that night is because I think it was a gymnastic sport. So everybody thinks, you know, 12, 13, 14 year old girl, everybody claps very politely for them. But trampoline people know how to party. So the fact that there was 14 and a half thousand screaming Australians there, 14,000 of them had no idea what trampoline was, had no idea who I was. But this little fella in a bright yellow leotard, his name is still in the number one position with one person to go. The crowd was going absolutely mental. I remember looking up thinking, I can't believe this is happening. And the fact that it's happening around my performance, it's just sensation. I can really understand how everybody was so proud of the way trampoline sold itself to the world that night.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, I read when you were on that podium with the silver medal around your neck as the Russian national anthem is being played. You're singing Advance Australia Fair. Is that true?
JI WALLACE: You bet I was. You can even see my mouth moving to it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I thought you just used the words to the Russian national anthem. I thought you were just like, oh, part Russian. Oh, this is a proud Moscow Olympics. I remember it very well.
JI WALLACE: Well, I mean, he is Mr. Tremblay, five-time writing world champion. So we had heard the Russian national anthem a fair amount of times. Yeah, as I said before, you are going in there for gold. So the fact that I got that close, I was going to take that moment and just sing along to the Australian national anthem all to myself.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which the thing I love about Sydney, among many things, is that Australia walks away with 16 gold, our best ever at the time. But some of our most memorable memories of Sydney were some of our silver medals. I mean, we think of you, we think of Tatiana Gregoria, but we think of the other jumping, Ji, of course, Jiay Tarima, in the long jump, who I believe you went to high school with, which is a fun fact I like. I mean, it's so fascinating to just think of the memories around those Olympics, that yeah, we celebrate the gold, but I would argue, Jiay, that some people would remember your silver medal more than some of our gold medals. Not to take away from those gold medallists, but I would argue that they would probably remember your moment more than some of them.
JI WALLACE: Well, I think because it was so special and so unique and so different and so unexpected, this guy out of the blue that nobody had ever heard of and nobody knew about, and nobody knew about the sport even, it wasn't like it was a 100 year old sport that had been at the Olympics for that long. It was the first time. So it was the first time that everybody was seeing it in its glory in such a special way. I think that's what makes it memorable. And of course, everybody's got that quintessential trampoline story from the backyard where they fell off. And the fact that they can see people doing what they fell off on in the backyard all those years ago, doing triple somersaults in different positions with different amounts of twists. You know, it has that relationship, it has that crossover and people can relate to it. Not everybody's swum up and down a pool and watching a black lion go up in it. Not everybody's run around a track, but everybody in Australia has got a trampoline story. So that relationship that made the night just spectacular.
BEN WATERWORTH: Reflecting on it now, I mean, as I said at the top, you're still the only Australian to ever medal in the sport of gymnastics. I mean, what does that mean to you, Ji? I mean, that'll never get taken away from you, of course, but I mean, does it still mean such a moment to you that you can kind of hold that distinction?
JI WALLACE: I actually wish somebody else to join me. I think that's what's going to be so exciting about leading into Brisbane 2032, is we've got a couple Olympic games to go before then, but wouldn't it be so special to know that another athlete actually gets to stand on the dice again here in Australia? So that's what's going to be my goal over the next 11 years, is actually seeing what I can actually do to make that come true. Now obviously, there's a lot, I think there's 3,990 days of training to go.
BEN WATERWORTH: Not counting at all.
JI WALLACE: And there's lots to get done between now and then, but I can't wait to have another Australian gymnast, whichever gymnastic sport, it's fine, I don't mind. But I can't wait to actually welcome somebody else in to the Olympic metal club.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I just want to quickly, on a technicality, say that other gymnasts have medaled. I mean, all those aerial skiers and divers that have won medals, I mean, can you sort of claim, I mean, Alyssa Camplin, Lydia Lassler, they're all gymnasts, right?
JI WALLACE: Oh, yeah, they've all come from gymnastics. They've all come from gymnastics, yeah, absolutely.
BEN WATERWORTH: But they're tramps. We'll count it, not the real gymnastics, though.
JI WALLACE: They're the half trample and the tramps.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, the tramps, exactly. Jai, before we let you go, I would love to just get you to sort of, I mean, what are you up to now post sort of that Sydney guys? I know you sort of dabbled in Cirque du Soleil. I believe you actually tried your hand at aerial skiing as well. I mean, is there something there that perhaps maybe you could make the comeback trail for Brisbane 2032? I mean, you never know. 11 years, you can get yourself back into shape again, can't you?
JI WALLACE: Maybe I can do 2030 Comm Games lawn bowls.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, there you go.
JI WALLACE: I really did want to do aerial skiing. I actually stopped trampoline and actually took myself around the world for three years to learn how to ski. So hopefully get on to a team to train because I could teach the way that aerial skiers somersault is old school trampoline. So we've actually evolved as a sport and got better in our technique. So I could have taught them better somersaulting and better twisting if they had taught me how to ski properly. So I think there was a real possibility there, but they didn't want anything to do with a men's program at the time. And then I went to Cirque du Soleil and got to show off in front of a big crowd doing big tricks and with a costume and makeup on. So that was really fun. And now actually work with my other half. We've got a skin business. So we teach cosmetic doctors and plastic surgeons how to use new skin techniques to keep everybody looking young and fresh and fab.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's why you're looking so young and fresh and fab, Ji. I was going to mention it. That's your secret. Your product's working.
JI WALLACE: Yeah. Well, only I'm only 25.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly.
JI WALLACE: And then I'm actually working with Vouli Play and Vouli Trampolines. So they've actually sponsored the next generation of trampolines coming through. So fingers crossed we find a little nugget in there and we can actually elevate the score through Vouli Trampolines. Best backyard trampolines I've ever been on. I always say that if I had a Vouli Trampolines in my backyard and I was a little kid, I could have won gold. I'm really involved in the fitness industry a lot. So Luke Isteman's new idea or new brand called Reunion, that's got three studios in Sydney and I'm going to look after the Brisbane and the Queensland rollout come next year. So there's a lot going on.
BEN WATERWORTH: Great. Well, before we go, plug all these products, plug yourself. Where can people sort of stay up to date with these and yourself on social media? People want to kind of check out what you're up to.
JI WALLACE: Just look for Ji Wallace on all the socials. You can look for Vulli. Look for the best backyard trampolines on vulliplay.com.au or.com, vulliplay.com. And then of course, just check out Reunion at reunion.com and they are and if you're in Sydney, jump on to those guys. They actually do some web workouts. So we've got those that you can jump on to as well. But if you're here in Queensland wait for 2022. And we're going to launch that really, really with amazing impact. And then of course, factor4.com. That's our skin business, Factor4 and Mderma Clinic Solutions. You can check us out there too.
BEN WATERWORTH: Beautiful. Ji, it has been an absolute honour to have a chat with you today, learn everything about your career. We're going to keep an eye out for that next generation and also, yeah, Lawn Bowls 2030. I expect you to finally win a gold medal when it comes to one of these sports. Ji, do it!
JI WALLACE: I left-handed googly down that Lawn Bowls like it.
BEN WATERWORTH: And a massive, massive thanks to Ji there for his time, as I sort of mentioned in the interview, one of our guests, we've always wanted to track down on the show, and such an honour to be able to speak to Ji. And I can definitely see him competing in Lawn Bowls in 2030, why not? I still stand by the fact that he'll be in Brisbane in 2032 competing against all the other Aussie trampolinists. And hopefully we can medal again in the sport by then, who knows, in 2032, but we've still got Paris and Los Angeles to come as well. So maybe we can add another Australian gymnastics medal to that list by the time we bring it back to Brisbane. But again, Ji, thanks very much for your time there. Another interview will come your way next week here on Off The Podium, bringing you plenty of great content in the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics. I should say the Beijing Olympics. What am I saying, Ben? The Beijing Olympics are the ones that you are getting excited about. Get excited about the Tokyo, go back and watch them. Plenty of highlights on the official Olympic YouTube channel for there for you to enjoy. But we have got some great ones lined up, essentially trying to bring you an episode every single week between now and the Beijing Olympics. So be them interviews and other episodes we've got planned. You'll definitely enjoy those. So stay tuned for those along the way. In the meantime, all the social media is out there for you to enjoy from Off The Podium. Of course, hit us up on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all of those, and subscribe to the show and all the good podcast channels, all the bad ones too, I always say, all the good ones, I'm sure there's some pretty shit ones out there, but we're on them, of course we are. And leave us some feedback, and we'd love to hear what you think about the show. Stay tuned until the next episode. My name is Ben, this has been Off The Podium, and we'll speak to you next time. Good night.
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