By Paul Martin at Arena Bercy

A ‘buzzing’ Zak Perzamanos revelled in the best night of his career after breaking new ground for British trampolining in Paris.

The 21-year-old from Liverpool finished fourth on his Olympic debut, just over a point outside the medal places, after keeping his composure in front of a partisan Parisian crowd.

That is the best-ever finish by a male Team GB trampolinist at the Olympics, beating Lee Brearley’s sixth place at Sydney 2000.

“I loved every minute, it was great,” he said.

“I’m buzzing. It hasn’t sunk in yet, I’m sure it will in the next couple of days, but being the highest finishing Brit, I have no complaints.

“Everyone told me about it as soon as I finished fourth, I was buzzing.

“It’s good to have on my CV. I still feel like I’m living the moment, the energy in the stadium was unbelievable.”

Perzamanos took the seventh of eight qualification spots and saved his best performance of the night for the final, scoring 59.840 after upping the difficulty of his routine and nailing the execution.

He was roared on throughout by cheers from the vast number of family and friends who had made the trip to support him.

(Image: Chloe Knott/Team GB)

Around 100 members of Liverpool Trampoline Gymnastics Academy in Speke travelled across the Channel while some of his family landed from even further afield.

“There was a fair few here,” said Perzamanos, who is benefitting from Aldi’s Nearest & Dearest programme in Paris. The programme helps maximise support and minimise potential distractions for athletes so that they can focus on their performance and make the most of the unique opportunity to compete on one of the world’s largest stages.

“They were scattered across the stadium so trying to spot them all was a task. I’ve got my close family over, other family have flown over from Australia, my friends from back home. It’s unbelievable.

“When you have a crowd like that, it helps you perform so much better. I let it give me energy, I tried to be aware of the moment and let it sink in.

“Hopefully I do, but I might never get a moment like that again, so I just want to live it all up. The whole experience has been great.”

A chance meeting with Andy Murray outside a lift in the athlete’s village proved another highlight for Perzamanos – “my head fell off, it was mad” – while he is hoping to attend the weekend’s artistic gymnastics finals as he makes the most of his stay.

His performance continued a memorable day for British trampolining, following on from Bryony Page winning Team GB’s first-ever gold in the women’s event.

Page revealed afterwards she hopes to return in LA and, with age on his side, Perzamanos wants to build on his own impressive Olympic bow having shown an aptitude for the big stage.

“I feel like I’ll never be nervous for a competition again,” he added. “That’s the peak of my career so far. From now on, it’s a lot less stressful.”

Aldi are proud Official Partners of Team GB & ParalympicsGB, supporting all athletes through to Paris 2024