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Viktoria Listunova and Ilia Kovtun stars of #EyofBaku2019
July 28, 2019News
The 2019 European Youth Olympic Festival, a bi-annual competition celebrating Europe’s rising stars in many different sports, was held in Baku (AZE) this week. Gymnastics enjoyed the state-of-the-art facilities of the National Gymnastics Arena, site of the 2015 European Games and many other high-level competitions.
Fresh of success at the first ever junior World Championships last month, Russia’s Viktoria Listunova and Ukraine’s Ilia Kovtun became the stars of Baku. Listunova earned an impressive total of 5 gold medals while Kovtun was not far behind, 4 gold medals and 1 silver!
In the team competition, Russia featuring Listunova, Iana Vorona and Irina Komnova, struggled on beam but strong performances on the other events gave them the edge over a strong Romanian squad with Great Britain in third place. The boys’ competition saw a close fight between Russia (Ivan Kuliak, Mukhammadzhon Iakubov and Kirill Gashkov) and Ukraine (Kovtun, Nazar Chepurnyi and Volodymyr Kostiuk) with the later making the difference on floor and parallel bars. Gold for Ukraine, silver for Russia and bronze for Italy.
Listunova made up for her beam mistakes in qualification by producing 4 lovely routines in the all-around final, cruising to victory with more than 3 points advantage:
I’m really happy that I won this competition, I was preparing for it for so long, it has been a long and difficult way here. I had to fight my nerves before every event. I would talk to myself, I knew I needed to go out and show what I can do. That’s, generally, what happened. Although, I guess, the bars let me down a bit today. I only started believing that I won after I had seen the final results on the screen. Although I still don’t feel like a champion. Despite the three points difference with the second place, I couldn’t believe in my victory until the end. Anything can happen.
Great Britain’s Ondine Achampong claimed the silver medal ahead of Russia’s Iana Vorona.
Kovtun earned a score of 82.000 to beat his Russian rivals Ivan Kuliak (81.100) and Mukhammadzhon Iakubov (80.550) for the EYOF all-around title.
In event finals, Listunova added the crown on vault, bars and floor to her ever expanding medal collection. Achampong won beam. The Romanian girls did really well too, earning a medal on each apparatus: Silviana Sfiringu won bronze on vault and floor and silver on beam while Ioana Stanciulescu, the 2018 junior European Champion on floor, clinched the bronze on bars and the silver on floor.
Kovtun and Chepurnyi won 2 event titles each, leaving the rings title for Iakubov. Vault was won by British talent Raekwon Baptiste.
Here are all medallists:
Men
Team
1. Ukraine 163.950
2. Russia 163.100
3. Italy 159.183
All-around
1. Ilia Kovtun (UKR) 82.000
2. Ivan Kuliak (RUS) 81.100
3. Mukhammadzhon Iakubov (RUS) 80.550
Floor
1. Nazar Chepurnyi (UKR) 14.300
2. Ilia Kovtun (UKR) 14.000
3. Ivan Kuliak (RUS) 13.966
Pommel horse
1. Nazar Chepurnyi (UKR) 13.900
2. Samad Mammadli (AZE) 13.600
3. Volodymyr Kostiuk (UKR) 13.533
Rings
1. Mukhammadzhon Iakubov (RUS) 13.500
2. Nazar Chepurnyi (RUS) 13.466
3. Ivan Kuliak (RUS) 13.333
Vault
1. Raekwon Baptiste (GBR) 13.983
2. Robert Burtanete (ROU) 13.933
3. Gabriel Burtanete (ROU) 13.833
Parallel bars
1. Ilia Kovtun (UKR) 14.600
2. Volodymyr Kostiuk (UKR) 14.300
3. Krisztian Balazs (HUN) 13.566
High bar
1. Ilia Kovtun (UKR) 13.366
2. Lucas Desanges (FRA) 13.233
3. Ivan Brunello (ITA) 13.200
Women
Team
1. Russia 108.050
2. Romania 106.800
3. Great Britain 103.850
All-around
1. Viktoria Listunova (RUS) 56.000
2. Ondine Achampong (GBR) 52.950
3. Iana Vorona (RUS) 52.550
Vault
1. Viktoria Listunova (RUS) 14.166
2. Anastasia Motak (UKR) 14.016
3. Silviana Sfiringu (ROU) 13.983
Uneven bars
1. Viktoria Listunova (RUS) 14.300
2. Irina Komnova (RUS) 13.733
3. Ioana Stanciulescu (ROU) 13.366
Beam
1. Ondine Achampong (GBR) 13.666
2. Silviana Sfiringu (ROU) 13.366
3. Clarisse Passeron (FRA) 13.000
Floor
1. Viktoria Listunova (RUS) 14.066
2. Ioana Stanciulescu (ROU) 13.633
3. Silviana Sfiringu (ROU) 13.400
For the full results, check our website: https://www.ueg.org/event/2019-european-youth-olympic-festival-eyof/results
Congratulations to all participants and the Organising Committee for the great competition!
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