Vaulting judge controlling contest in heartless fashion (7)

I believe the answer is:

jumping

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'vaulting' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'judge controlling contest in heartless fashion' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'judge' could be 'j' (abbreviation for judge) and 'j' is located in the answer.
'in' is within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for jumping that I've seen is " Leaping, bounding".)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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