TSN

Jason Burnett of Toronto broke his own world record for degree of difficulty at a trampoline World Cup event Saturday en route to a silver medal in the men’s final.

Burnett, who went into the final ranked third after Friday’s qualifications, jazzed up his optional routine with several multiple twisting moves to score a whopping 18.8 points for degree of difficulty, breaking his old mark of 18.00 set at the Pacific Rim Championships in April.

Despite his dazzling performance Burnett was nudged out of the top spot by reigning world champion Dong Dong of China who scored lower for difficulty (16.6) but was awarded more points for execution.

Dong claimed the gold with a score of 41.90 points, with Burnett a tenth of a point behind at 41.80 and Tu Xiao of China in third with 41.60 points.

“Everything went really well,” said Burnett, the silver medal winner at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“Having the world record pretty much sets me apart from the others and I think it should be safe for quite a while now. For the rest of the year, I’ll still be doing routines with a high degree of difficulty but I won’t be aiming for the record again unless I see someone getting too close.”

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