Russia Successfully Defends their European Gymnastics Championships Team Title

The Russian men’s national team displayed a strong performance at the recently held European Artistic Gymnastics Championships, successfully defending their European title at the group competition. The Russian team posted impressive scores, comfortably beating their closest rival Britain in the competition held in Bern. 

The Russian men’s team, which is comprised of David Belyavskiy, Denis Abliazin, Nikita Ignatyev, Nikita Nagornyy and Nikolai Kuksenkov, acquired a sky-high score of 271.378, a score that would have been enough to claim the title at the Glasgow World Championships in 2015. 

The British team, which consists of Courtney Tulloch, Dan Purvis, Kristian Tomas, Louis Smith and Nile Wilson, was left hanging on the second place for two consecutive event editions after finishing with a score of 268.427, almost three points behind the Russian team. 

The British men’s national team strongly rivaled the Group event champion – Russia – in all of the apparatus events and finished comfortably ahead of the bronze medalist Switzerland. 

The host country’s national team, comprised of Benjamin Gishchard, Christian Baumann, Eddy Yusof, Oliver Hegi, and Pablo Braegger, landed on the third spot after finishing with 263.278 points. 

“It was a great competition with lots of positives for us all individually and as a team,” British team’s Kristian Thomas commented. 

“The main focus at these championships is to use them to help us be at our best for Rio and I think we can all be happy that we have done that and of course it’s great to have a medal for our country.”

The Russian men’s team, who performed poorly at the 2015 World Championships but have now drastically improved their results, led the competition from the beginning and obtained a combined score of 45.866 after the first rotation.

They continued their dominance on the succeeding competitions, further surpassing the scores posted by their closest rival Britain.

Britain was then left further behind the Russian team at the halfway stage and from that moment on, the winner of the gold medal is already determined, but the British team were still capable of impressing the audiences, with Wilson posting an impressive score of 15.966 on the parallel bars. 

While Russia and Britain fought for the group title, the Switzerland managed to secure the third spot, with Ukraine not being able to reach the podium. 

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