High flying Jason Burnett got back on track in his first big competition in almost a year, winning the gold medal on Saturday in a small field at the Jannie Jansen trampoline and tumbling meet. Strike Nkuna and Lucky Radebe of South Africa placed second and third respectively. Burnett and his Canadian teammates, who won five of six events, were clearly the stars of the show in a low key meet focused more on promoting the sport than than winning medals.

“I didn’t feel any pressure at all because we really came here to have fun and work with young athletes in the clubs and schools,” said Burnett, who broke a leg in a gym accident last July.

“I’m a 100 percent recovered now and it was great just be be competing again.”

Burnett, a five-time Canadian champion and silver medal winner at the Beijing Olympics, is working on two new routines and has about a year and a half to get them in top shape for the 2012 Games in London.

“Both routines have very high degree of difficulty and will keep me competitive with the Chinese athletes and the plan is to get them clean and very stable well before the Games."

In the women’s trampoline competition, Rosannagh MacLennan of Toronto fell midway through her final routine and had to settle for second behind Bianca Budler of South Africa. In other events Denis Vachon of Burlington, Ont., and Alex Seifert of Calgary finished 1-2 in both men’s tumbling and double mini trampoline while Emily Smith of Burlington placed first in women’s tumbling and Corissa Boychuk of Airdrie, Alta., topped the field in double mini. Julie Warnock, also of Airdrie, Alta., in her last event before retiring, bounced too far on the landing of her second routine and wound up third. Boychuk, the reigning world champion in women’s double mini, downgraded the difficulty in her routines slightly to work on execution and was happy with the result.

“All four of my passes in prelims and finals went pretty well and it was a lot of fun competing against some of the kids we were coaching the other day in a gym. They were excited to see us and we were excited to cheer them on.”

The Canadian team will spend another week in Pretoria training and visiting more schools and gyms.