Highlights of the Men’s competition at #Rimini2024

The last big test before the summer’s Olympic Games, Europe’s finest male gymnasts gathered in the Italian coastal town of Rimini to battle not only for continental glory, but also for that much-coveted last Olympic ticket. The 37 participating national federations were represented by 296 gymnasts, 171 seniors and 125 juniors.

Here are our 12 highlights, in no particular order!

 

Miraculous Marios

With his eyes firmly set on securing Olympic qualification, Marios Georgiou gave it his all. Starting on vault, the Cypriot scored over 14 points on 4 apparatuses, highlighted by magnificent parallel bars and horizontal bar routines. Sealing the deal on rings, a total score of 84.265 earned him the gold medal. After the bronze medal in the all-around in 2019, Marios Georgiou can proudly call himself the 2024 European All-Around Champion! And the icing on the cake … Marios Georgiou earned that last available ticket for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. What a fabulous day in the office for the 26-year-old!

Team thriller

In an exciting team final, featuring the three up, three count format, top qualifiers Ukraine and Great Britain ensured an intense build-up and a dramatic finish, as they performed in alternation. The British team, featuring Joe Fraser, Harry Hepworth, Jake Jarman, Courtney Tulloch and James Hall, went into the last rotation with a one point margin over Ukraine, thanks to a great floor rotation and a huge vault total. Fate was to be decided by horizontal bar. Cheered on by his teammates Oleg Verniaiev, Igor Radivilov, Nazar Chepurnyi and Radomyr Stelmakh, newly crowned European Champion on exactly that apparatus, Illia Kovtun earned 14.400 for a hit routine and a grand total of 255.762 for the Ukrainian victory, regaining the team title they last won in Mersin in 2020. Silver for Great Britain, who get onto the podium for a third consecutive time.

Records are made to be broken

In the rings final, all eyes were on Eleftherios Petrounias. The last gymnast to perform, the Greek Lord of the Rings kept his cool under pressure, edging past Azerbaijan’s Nikita Simonov and defending Champion Adem Asil (TUR). Cheered on by wife Vasiliki Millousi and their two daughters, Petrounias is the European Champion on rings, once again, for a record-breaking seventh time!

Verniaiev’s back

On his return to continental Championships, Ukraine’s superstar Oleg Verniaiev did not disappoint. The 2015 and 2017 European Champion hit a delightful pommel horse routine for 15.166, and vaulted to a total of 84.031 to secure the silver medal in the all-around. He couldn’t quite believe it himself: “I’m so happy. I have two [all-around] golds, and one bronze. Now I have the silver medal so I have all collection.”

Brits on the horizon

The junior British team, featuring Uzair Chowdhury, Zakaine Fawzi-McCaffrey, Gabriel Langton, Evan McPhillips and Sol Scott, put up fabulous scores on vault and parallel bars, the highest totals of the qualification rounds. Ending their quest on floor, Sol Scott needed 13,838, to overtake Italy. Keeping his cool, and loudly supported by his teammates and coaches, Scott nailed his routine. Result? A 13,866! Great Britain surpasses Italy by the slimmest of margins, just 0,028, for the 2024 junior European Team title!

Flying on floor

Last up on floor, defending Champion Luke Whitehouse knew he had to hit to have a chance of overtaking the top score of Israeli World and Olympic Champion Artem Dolgopyat. And he did just that! The Brit scored 14.866, a mere 0.033 making the difference between gold and silver. Whitehouse successfully defended his European floor crown, Dolgopyat earned the silver and Krisztofer Meszaros brought the bronze medal home to Hungary.

As magic as one, two, three

On pommel horse, defending Champion, and current World Champion, Rhys McClenaghan showed off his class yet again. Posting both the highest difficulty and execution score, the 24-year-old Irishman looked composed and in control as he stormed through an excellent routine. With a third European title in the pocket, McClenaghan seems right on track for the Paris Olympics. 

Jake’s edge

The battle for the vault title was fought between the reigning World Champion Jake Jarman (GBR) and defending European Champion Artur Davtyan (ARM). Both are among the very best in the world on this apparatus and they showed why. Jarman’s first vault had a higher difficulty value while Davtyan had fabulous execution. Their average scores amounted to 14.883 compared to 14.850. Jake Jarman regained the European vault title he previously won in 2022 while Davtyan returned home with the silver medal. Ukraine’s Nazar Chepurnyi clinched the bronze medal, just as he did at last year’s World Championships.

King Kovtun

 On parallel bars, defending Champion Illia Kovtun (UKR) put on a faultless display, running way ahead of his competitors, thanks to his impressive 6.9 difficulty score. A mammoth 15.633 ensured Kovtun can call himself the European Champion once again. And the night only got better. On horizontal bar, Kovtun narrowly edged Robert Tvorogal, Lithuania’s pride and joy for the gold medal. In less than an hour, Kovtun grabbed two European titles while just returning from surgery. What an incredible achievement!

It’s to be Hamlet

Pommel horse is clearly an apparatus loved in Armenia. Reigning junior World Champion Hamlet Manukyan impressed with impeccable form, winning the gold medal with a great score of 14.500. His teammate Mamikon Khachatryan made the nation double proud as he clinched the bronze.

Europe’s future stars

In the junior all-around final, we witnessed the two top qualifiers, France’s Anthony Mansard and Italy’s Tommaso Brugnami, going head-to-head throughout the final and keeping the audience on the edge of their seats in anticipation. Brugnami started off strongest on floor, while the roles were reversed on pommel horse. Then Brugnami was better again on rings and on vault. With 2 rotations to go, the 17-year-old Italian edged his French rival by 3 tenths of a point. Still to come though were parallel bars and horizontal bar. Mansard won silver and gold respectively on these events, so he definitely had the possibility to make up those tenths. With 8 tenths advantage in difficulty score on parallel bars, and 6 tenths on horizontal bar, Mansard cruised to this goal, posting the highest scores of the final on these apparatuses. With a magnificent total score of 81.499, Mansard was crowned the new junior European all-around Champion! Brugnami clinched the silver. We hope we’ll see many more exciting battles between these rising stars!

The Shooting Star Award goes to … Harald Wibye (NOR)

When listening to Harald Wibye’s story, there’s only one possible conclusion: he’s Superman. The 24-year-old from Fredrikstad leads a busy life: he studies from early morning, then trains himself and coaches others for seven hours, and then more studying until late into the night for his Law degree and additional Masters in Economics.

He cut down his own training hours from 30 hours a week, to around 20, stating that he finds that when he has more to think about than just his own career, he became more focused. When his coach left for a contract abroad, Harald took over although that was no planned at all. Aside from competing in Rimini himself, he coaches 2 of the other participants: Niklas Syverhuset in the men’s senior competition and Juliane Tøssebro in the women’s senior competition.

So can you combine your own career, with studying and working? Harald definitely can.