Highlights of the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Europeans!

A week before Christmas, the Mersin Gymnastics Hall witnessed magic on the carpet and a glimpse of a return to a more normal life after the frustrating circumstances in 2020. With less participants and strict covid guidelines, the competition attracted a lot of attention internationally. Full credit goes to the amazing performances by the gymnasts!

Here are our highlights … in no particular order!

Miss Mersin 2020 … Ana Barbosu!

The award of ‘star of the competition’ certainly goes to Romanian talent Ana Barbosu. The 14-year-old, who turns senior in 2022, won all 6 gold medals, a feat never achieved before. In the all-around, Barbosu built an advantage of more than 4 points over silver medallist and teammate Maria Ceplinschi while her incredible performances lead the way for Romania’s convincing victory in the team competition. In the apparatus finals, Barbosu added gold on vault, bars, beam and floor. Simply amazing!

Larisa’s back

During warm-up at the 2017 World Championships, fan favourite Larisa Iordache tore her Achilles tendon. Several operations later, the 24-year-old Romanian announced her comeback would be at these Europeans. Her performance in qualifications was magnificent, qualifying Romania in first place to the team final and earning herself a spot in all 4 apparatus finals. After team and vault silver, Iordache was crowned European Champion on both beam and floor. With a total Europeans medal collection of 16, she becomes the second most decorated European gymnast. Only Svetlana Khorkina, with 20 medals, has done better.

Trailblazing for Turkey

Goksu Uctas Sanli continues to lead the way for Turkish gymnastics. In 2012, she became the first Turkish gymnast to compete in the Olympic Games. She then retired, married and gave birth to a daughter. Only eleven months later, she returned to competition, continuing to win medals at World Cup events and the Mediterranean Games. In Mersin she won the silver on floor, Turkey’s first European medal!

Kovacs’ delight

2017 Vice-European Champion in the all-around, Zsofia Kovacs, excelled in Mersin, leading her team to the bronze medal and bagging two European titles in the space of half an hour. Her gold medal on vault was the first since Adrienn Varga’s victory back in 1998. She also added the gold on bars ahead of teammate Zoja Szekely.

Hands up for Ukraine

Second in qualifications, the ladies of the Ukrainian team improved their routines and scores to upset Romania for their first ever European title. The delight on the faces of Angelina Radivilova, Anastasia Bachynska, Anastasia Motak, Diana Varinska and Yelyzaveta Hubareva said it all.

Medal table

8 countries returned home with at least one medal. Congratulations! Barbora Mokosova won Slovakia’s first ever medal at a European Championships, by clinching the bronze on bars! Israel’s Lihie Raz secured her spot at the Tokyo Olympics and earned her country’s first medal in Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Romania	8	4	2	14
Hungary	2	2	3	7
Ukraine	1	2	3	6
Turkey	-	1	1	2
Bulgaria	-	1	-	1
Croatia	-	1	-	1
Israel	-	-	1	1
Slovakia	-	-	1	1

 

A heartfelt THANK YOU to the Turkish Gymnastics Federation who did a fabulous job in a really short time!