The Vertical Zone Trampoline Centre celebrated its grand opening with demonstrations from some of Canada’s top trampoline athletes.

Olympic silver medalist Karen Cockburn and Canadian men’s champion Jason Burnette came out for the Sept. 15 celebration.

“The idea is to try to create awareness for my new gym, the Vertical Zone Trampoline Centre, so we’ve some national level athletes here to show off their talents,” said Jeff McCabe, owner and senior coach at Vertical Zone.

The centre offers instructional classes, birthday parties is available for drop-in appointments.

A schedule of events will be available on the facility’s website.

Cockburn said she feels she has a duty to come out to events like this grand opening to help promote the sport.

“It’s important for me, with the platform I have, to promote this sport and I heard Jeff was opening up this club in Barrie, and I think it’s great for this community to have a trampoline club and get more people involved in the sport,” she said.

Cockburn, who competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics before winning silver in Athens in 2004, said the sport is a great way to keep fit.

“It’s really great exercise and it’s a lot of fun, you don’t even really feel like you are exercising,” she said. “For me, I got involved in trampoline because it was fun, I didn’t even know it was a competitive sport.”

Cockburn said the sport has really increased in popularity since it was introduced to the Olympics in 2000.

“We’ve seen so much growth, so many clubs opening up,” she said. “We want to get a lot kids involved because nowadays, physical activity is low, so just to promote that and get kids to try it out.”

The Vertical Zone Trampoline Centre is located at 7-431 Bayview Dr.

For more information, visit www.verticalzonetrampolinecentre.ca.