The reigning Olympic champion on floor Artem Dolgopyat came into the floor final at the World Championships in Antwerp as the top qualifier and was a heavy favorite to medal, possibly, even win gold. That would be his first gold medal at the World Championships and the first gold for Israel (his silver medals in 2017 and 2019 were the highest Israel’s finishes at Worlds). Dolgopyat even withdrew from the all-around final where he was the 8th qualifier to rest before the floor final. But on Saturday morning, he woke at 5:30 AM because of his phone blasting a rocket attack alert. The rocket atta ..read more

Oleg Verniaiev returns to the World Championships four years after his last appearance in 2019. This will be his first major international competition in four years. Verniaiev’s break from competitions was first due to the pandemic – when the European Championships and the Tokyo Olympics were postponed. He was set to compete at Euros in December 2020 but tested positive for meldonium in an out-of-competition testing. Originally suspended for four years, Verniaiev would have been ineligible to compete until fall of 2024 when he would be 31 years old, effectively missing not jus Tokyo but Paris ..read more

As a part of the preparations for the 2025 WAG and MAG European Championships, Tel Aviv became one of the hosts for one of the World Challenge Cups. The series kicked off in Varna over the past weekend, will continue in Tel Aviv and Osijek over the next two weeks and then will resume in the fall with World Cups in Mersin, Szombathely, and Paris. View this post on Instagram A post shared by איגוד ההתעמלות בישראל (@israelgymfed) On paper, the idea of three back to back World Cups around the Mediterranean region might sound good, especially for countries who have to travel from outside of E ..read more

Yesterday, the International Olympic Committee made recommendations to sports federations to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in international competitions with a number of conditions. It is on the individual federations to make specific decisions regarding which recommendations to adopt and how to ensure they’re followed. Among other things, the IOC recommended allowing only individual athletes and not teams, which means the Russian MAG and WAG teams are unlikely to compete in Paris. They have actually already missed the deadline that would allow them to qualify as a team ..read more

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has announced that Oleg Verniaiev’s doping suspension is reduced from four to two years. Oleg Verniaiev tested positive for meldonium in August 2020 during an out of competition doping test. He was notified of the test result in November 2020 and provisionally suspended which led him to miss the 2020 European Championships. In July 2021, Verniaiev received an official suspension for four years starting on November 5th 2020. First-time doping violations normally result in a two-year suspension if an athlete admits their fault. However, since Verniaiev claimed ..read more

In 2022, Igor Radivilov experienced probably one of the most challenging seasons in his career – his training was interrupted by the Russian invasion, he spent several months as a refugee in Germany, his native city Mariupol was heavily bombed and occupied by the Russian army, and his grandparents died during the bombings. He managed to persevere and won a bronze on vault at the World Championships but throughout the year, he was not sure he’d keep going: “The year 2022 was very hard for me, in all aspects. Regarding the sport, I managed to have good results. In the beginning of the year, my c ..read more

In 2011, Harutyun Merdinyan was the first gymnast to win a European Championships medal for independent Armenia – a bronze on pommel horse. This medal was followed by five more, including two golds. The last he won at this year’s European Championships – at 38 years old. Last week, Merdinyan also repeated his 2015 achievement by winning a bronze on PH at the World Championships. Armenia did not qualify a team to Euros but two more Armenian gymnasts, Artur Avetisyan and Vahagn Davtyan, made the rings final, and Artur Davtyan won gold on vault – the first gold at Worlds in the history of indepen ..read more

Illia Kovtun often competes better in the finals than in the qualification. Today was no exception and he gained over 0.6 compared to his qualification score which was enough to finish 7th. Kovtun placed 15th in the qualification. However, a nagging shoulder injury affected his training and in the end he made several mistakes in the final, notably on parallel bars and high bar, which kept him out of the fight for bronze. Last year, Kovtun won bronze in the all-around behind Zhang Boheng and Hashimoto Daiki. This year, the two switched places with Hashimoto winning gold and Zhang silver, but th ..read more

Finland’s Maisa Kuusikko became the first Finnish gymnast to compete in the all-around final. Not only that, but she finished in the 13th place after qualifying to the final in 29th. For the 17-year-old Kuusikko this was her second World Championships but last year, she only competed on bars and did not have a great competition. AND MAISA KUUSIKKO MAKES HISTORY AS THE FIRST GYMNAST FROM FINLAND TO EVER MAKE AN ALL-AROUND FINAL, WHERE SHE FINISHED 13TH!!!!!!!!!!!! — The Gymternet (@thegymterdotnet) November 3, 2022 She gained quite a lot of experience at international competitions, however ..read more

In 2017, Ellie Black won all-around silver at the home World Championships in Montreal. This year, she did not quite have difficulty and preparation to be a medal favorite in the final, so her main goal was to enjoy the competition and show the crowd good gymnastics: “I think I was the oldest one competing in the all-around tonight and to be fifth in the world is phenomenal. I think it shows that age is only a number and you can still improve and still be the top in the world. It was super special tonight, I was really happy with my performance. My whole perspective on this competition was to ..read more