The number came first, before the applause caught up. On 5 July 2026, at the FIG Trampoline & Tumbling World Cup in Coimbra, Ruben Padilla threw a triple-twisting, triple-somersault dismount and the panel returned a difficulty of 14.0. No gymnast had reached that figure in Double Mini-Trampoline. World Gymnastics marked it plainly on its own broadcast: a new world difficulty record. Padilla took the gold with 32.000 points.
How the final was decided
Double Mini rewards nerve over volume. Two passes, each a short run, a hurdle, a mounter and a dismount, and no margin for a soft landing. Padilla built his win on ambition, carrying the highest difficulty into the final and then holding the execution together long enough to make it count. The 14.0 dismount lifted him beyond the reach of the field. Gavin Dodd of Canada finished second on 29.400. Portugal's José Francisco took bronze on 29.300, a home result to satisfy the arena. The gap at the top was not close. A margin of more than two and a half points in a discipline measured in tenths tells its own story.
What made the pass notable was not only its scale but its ownership. Padilla did not chase someone else's record. He broke his own. The mark he surpassed, 13.9, had been set on the same Portuguese floor a year earlier, when he cleared a triple pike and a quadruple back tuck to move the ceiling of the sport upward for the first time.
