40th MEN's EUROPEANS of Artistic Gymnastics

♦ PREVIEW: The starting situation ...

* TEAMS --: Since Copenhagen (1996), Russia has won 6x team gold alone and is now facing promising hat-tricks here in Glasgow after Sofia (2014) and Bern (2016). The Russians are most likely to put a stop by the British hosts, who for the first time decorated themselves with European Championship gold in "their" 2012 Olympic year, relegated the Russians to second place and recently (2016, 2014) won twice the silver medal. So everything looks like an interesting duel for gold this time! Who in the Hydro-Arena still with the title, but rather for the medal ranks in question, is quite open, certainly depends on the daily form and the staffing. The Swiss, who recently won bronze in Bern, unfortunately have to start without important athletes: Braegger, Yusof and Baumann are injured.
It will be interesting to see how generally the mix between the established and the subordinate youth in the teams of Germany, France or Ukraine succeeds.
►► ECh-Team Desicions, Men 1996 - 2016
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* Apparatus Finals --: A serious prediction about the favorites of the final competitions seems nearly impossible: Unfortunately there are currently no comparable starting fields in the overloaded international competition calendar, but several big names are scheduled to compete:
Great Britain’s star Max Whitlock, Ukraine’s Igor Radivilov, Slovenia’s Saso Bertoncelj, Russian defending vault Champion Artur Dalaloyan and pommel horse champion David Belyavskiy, the Flying Dutchmen Epke Zonderland and Bart Deurloo, floor stars Alexander Shatilov and Artyom Dolgopyat (ISR), and many many others. The Greek Lord of the Rings Eleftherios Petrounias will aim to tie Yuri Chechi’s record of 4 consecutive rings titles ...!
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♦♦ European T E A M  Competition

*Saturday, 11. August:
♦♦ M E N' s  T E A M  F I N A L

RUSSIA's GOLDEN HATTRICK
* ueg - report--: The spectators attending the men’s team final were in for a real treat. The top 8 teams after qualification gave the best of themselves at the Hydro, competing in the exciting format of three gymnasts perform, all three scores count towards the team total.
Second in qualification, Great Britain looked confident to correct the mistakes they made on Thursday. They started strong on floor and continued in that line on pommel horse and rings as well. In the meantime, top qualifier Russia counted a fall on floor as Nikita Nagornyy sat down his double front and Dmitriy Lankin stumbled out of a front double piked dismount on rings.

Both teams excelled on vault, highlighted by Dominick Cunningham’s 14.900 with an impressive 9.500 execution. Russia even did slightly better taking over the leader’s position. The level on parallel bars was high as well with Great Britain posting the second-highest total and Russia scoring 45.199, the highest event total of the afternoon.

Going into the last rotation, Russia had a 1-point lead over Great Britain. Unfortunately, the British hopes for gold vanished as both Cunningham and Hall fell. Russia controlled their final routines well, securing the team title with a margin of almost four points. Winning their third European title in a row made the guys extremely proud. It’s a mission accomplished! Nikolay Kuksenkov said after the competition: "I feel happy because we have become European Champions three times in a row.It was our goal to win three times.When you win, it doesn't matter how many points you win. Two or three tenths of a point [will determine whether] you have gold, silver or bronze medal. Today we made mistakes that we shouldn't have made. The grip on the high bar was very bad and you will have seen a lot of mistakes on the high bar in this competition, because of the grip. This is sports, everything can happen."

The most consistent team today, France cruised to the bronze medal, avoiding major mistakes. Loris Frasca contributed a massive 14.900 on vault and Cyril Tommasone sealed the deal with an excellent pommel horse routine, for 14.666. In the end, they had a three-point advantage over Germany and Switzerland.
Spain finished in sixth while the leader at the halfway stage, Turkey, dropped down to seventh. They can be proud of their achievements here though: they made the top eight in Europe for the first time! Italy took themselves out of contention at the very beginning when their first gymnast up missed his vault and got a zero.

 * R E S U L T S:

1. RUSSIA              - 257,260
2. GREAT BRITAIN  - 253,362
3. FRANCE             - 246,928
      4. Germany             - 243,629
      5. Switzerland         - 243,462
      6. Spain                  - 239,461
      7. Turkey                - 239,361
      8. Italy                    - 222,327
      ►► MEN's Team-Final

►► ECh-Team Desicions, Men 1996 - 2018
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* Thursday, August 09
♦ Team Qualification
* ueg report --: Spread over three subdivisions, 151 senior gymnasts from 36 countries fought to take their team to the final on Saturday or for a place in one of the apparatus finals on Sunday.
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→ In the strong subdivision 3 the top 12 teams from the 2016 Europeans competed. A show down between Great Britain and Russia is what most people expect. With the current format of 3 gymnasts perform, all three scores count towards the team total, anything can happen though. Russia started on high bar with a spectacular fall from David Belyaskiy who slipped off the bar while preparing for his dismount. They did recover well to lead this qualification day with an advantage of almost seven points, scoring the highest team total on all but one event, high bar. Great Britain lost valuable points on vault with mistakes by both Dom Cunningham and Courtney Tulloch but they know that there is room for improvement in the final. Germany and Switzerland went head-to-head placing third and fourth respectively. Germany had the second-highest total on vault while Switzerland excelled on parallel bars. Turkey overcame problems on floor and pommel horse to become the best team on high bar on their way to securing the fifth place. France, Spain and Italy round out the top 8 and will compete again on Saturday.

* Teams, qualified to finals:
1. RUS 259.427;   2. GBR 252.496;  3. GER 246.094
4. SUI 245.092;    5. TUR 243.259;   6. FRA 242.996
7. ESP 242.761;   8.  ITA 241.128
  ► Detailed results
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  P O M M E L  H O R S E  (> S t a r t l i s t )
           > qu.: Pommel horse;
History for Ireland
One of the faces to watch at this event, Ireland’s Rhys Mcclenaghan certainly lived up the expectations. He performed the most difficult routine (6.5) and also noted the highest execution score. The first ever European medal for Ireland, and it is nothing less than gold! None of his competitors even came close.  The 19-year-old commented: "I said at the start I wanted to make history for Ireland again, and why not make it the gold? And here's the gold to prove it. I mean business when I come out here, and it's all paid off. I hope that I've done a huge amount for gymnastics in Ireland and the UK. I want this sport to grow even further than it has already, and with results like this, it will."
For second-place there was a tie, between two well-known pommel horse specialists, Robert Seligman (CRO) and Saso Bertoncelj (SLO). Both were absolutely delighted with this result as they forced defending European Champion David Belyavskiy (RUS) into the unfortunate fourth position. Home crowd favourite, World and Olympic Champion Max Whitlock, made a big mistake which took him out of the race.

1. MCCLENAGHAN,Rhys  (IRL)  - (6.5) = 15,300
2. SELIGMAN, Robert    (CRO)  - (6.1) = 14,866
2. BERTONCELJ, Saso  (SLO)  - (6.1) = 14,866
        ► Detailed Results

  V A U L T  (> S t a r t l i s t )
            * qu.: > V a u l t ;
Dalaloyan repeats vaulting success
With his signature triple twisting Yurchenko, defending European Champion Artur Dalaloyan set the standard. Ukraine’s Igor Radivilov came close with two nice vaults but couldn’t quite manage to reach the score of the Russian. Dalaloyan retains his title and Radivilov adds another vault medal to his large collection. They were joined on the podium by another Russian, Dmitriy Lankin, who claimed bronze, just 0.066 ahead of France’s Loris Frasca.

1. DALALOYAN, Artur  (RUS)  - (5.6) - 15,000
                                                    - (5.6) - 14,800 = 14,900
2. RADIVILOV, Igor     (UKR)   - (5.6) - 14,733
                                                     - (5.6) - 15,000 = 14,866
3. LANKIN, Dmitri       (RUS)   - (5.6) - 14,733
                                                     - (5.2) - 14,600 = 14,666
       ► Detailed Results

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  H I G H  B A R    (> S t a r t l i s t )
            * qu.: > High Bar;
From silver to gold for Hegi
Last year’s silver medallist on high bar, Switzerland’s Oliver Hegi upgraded to the gold in Glasgow, following in the footsteps of his compatriot Pablo Braegger. The Flying Dutchman Epke Zonderland, the 2012 Olympic Champion, made the crowd gasp with his spectacular flight combinations but he made some mistakes which lowered his execution score. It was still good enough for silver though! Three gymnasts scored 14.033, so a tie breaker decided the bronze medal winner: David Vecsernyes of Hungary. Taha Serhani (SUI) finished fourth and Great Britain’s James Hall fifth.

1. HEGI, Oliver                 (SUI)  - (6.2) = 14,700
2. ZONDERLAND, Epke   (NED)  - (6.7) = 14,400
3. VESCERNYES, David  (HUN)  - (5.7) = 14,033
        ► Detailed Results

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♦♦ European Junior Championships 2018
      -  Glasgow, August 10 - 12 -

♦♦ JUNIORS APP. FINALS (Sunday, August 12)

** Detailed Results:
► FLOOR exc.; ► Pommel horse;  ► Still Rings;
► V a u l t         ► Parallel bars;    ► High bars.
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* Qualifiers to the Apparatus Finals: (Friday, August 10)
> Floor Exerc.;  > Pommel horse;   > Still Rings; 
> V a u l t ;         > Parallel Bars;       > High Bar.
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* TEAM Compettion (Thursday, August 09)
1. RUSSIA              - 240,961
2. GREAT BRITAIN  - 240,128
3. ITALY                  - 237,895
4. SUI                     - 237,829
5. UKR                    - 235,096
6. GER                    - 233,695
  ► Detailed Results

* Ind. All-around  (Thursday, August 09)
1. MOZZATO, Nicolo  (ITA) - 80,198
2. LEWIS, Jamie     (GBR) - 79,731
4. NAIDIN, Sergei   (RUS) - 79,598
  ► Detailed Results

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