“It was a nerve fight”: the Russian men's team won the team all-around for the first time at the World Championships in gymnastics

Silver Russians and an incredible fight in the men's finals

The first medals at the World Gymnastics Championships were traditionally played in the all-around. On the eve of the very successful Russian women performed. They managed to take second place, leaving behind only the US team. On Wednesday, the men were to enter the battle, and the most serious hopes lay on them.

Last year, the Russians were more than ever close to winning the gold of the team all-around at the world championship for the first time in history, but they were offensively lost to the Chinese. Moreover, a fateful mistake was made by Arthur Dalaloyan. But later he corrected himself and became a two-time world champion, including taking first place in the individual all-around.

A year later, the Russian team, which included Dalaloyan, Nikita Nagorny, Denis Ablyazin, Ivan Stretovich, and David Belyavsky, intended to challenge the invincible Chinese again. And already in the qualification, domestic gymnasts managed to take first place and not much ahead of opponents from the Middle Kingdom. Russia scored 259.928 points, while China scored 258.354. Third place was unexpectedly taken by a young Japanese team.

In the final, all the attention of the fans in Stuttgart was riveted to the confrontation between China and Russia. Representatives of the Middle Kingdom began the competition is not an example better. They performed almost all the exercises perfectly and simply did not leave any chances for the rivals.

Russian gymnasts, on the contrary, were nervous and made mistakes. The experienced Belyavsky, on whom the given championship of the planet became the eighth in his career, was not the best on horseback. And Nagorny and Stretovich received fairly modest assessments. On the rings, another experienced gymnast Ablyazin, a five-time Olympic medalist, allowed the blot.

Thus, before the bars, the Russians conceded to the Chinese already about one and a half points, and this, to put it mildly, was a good help for rivals. Moreover, this species is a reference for representatives of the Celestial Empire. In addition, the blot was immediately made by one of the leaders of the Dalaloyan team.

In a difficult moment, the Russians could break down and accept defeat, but did not do this, but, on the contrary, gathered. The Chinese wavered, realizing that the main pursuer did not give up, and began to make mistakes.

As a result, everything was decided in its final form - the crossbar. The Russians performed great, not making mistakes, despite the enormous tension. But the Asians began to lose sight of their advantage. The last to the crossbar was Nagorny. Hall of tension was silent.

And in the ensuing silence, Nikita perfectly completed his work. After the announcement of the grades, it became clear that our gymnasts finally did what no one else in the history of Russian gymnastics had succeeded in - they won the world championship in team all-around. Russia eventually scored 261.726 points in the sum of all exercises, and China - 260.729 points. The Japanese unexpectedly became the third (258,159). As for domestic gymnastics, the last time the victory in this form at the World Cup was won by the Soviet team in 1991.

“I finally lived to this point”

Despite the historic victory, domestic athletes simply could not really rejoice - they left all their strength on sports equipment. But Nagorny even admitted that on the eve of the final of the team all-around, he could not fall asleep until two in the night because of the excitement.

“I did not look at the ratings of the Chinese. He was rooting for ours, he even plucked his voice, but he didn’t see the Chinese, because it was necessary to tune in, I was the last to speak, and everything depended on me. And yesterday, before going to bed, probably 400 times I completed a combination in my head, I could not fall asleep until two in the morning, because I knew that I would go last. This is beyond words, it was just necessary to go out and do it, ”the TASS athlete quotes.

In turn, Dalaloyan admitted that he had been waiting for this moment all last year. Now, Arthur’s assets immediately include three gold medals of the world championships, but the current World Cup has just begun.

“For a whole year I could not sleep at night, because I lived with this medal, every training day I thought only about it, because a year ago we did not have a fraction of thousandths of a point to climb to first place. Just that day I was mistaken, the Chinese were ahead of us, so throughout the year there was a motivation to go out and do it, because next year the Olympic Games, ”said Dalaloyan.

This gold became especially important for veterans of the Russian national team Ablyazin and Belyavsky, who had already won a lot, but in Stuttgart they managed to write their names in history.

“It seems to me that we all have very different emotions, because for me, for example, this is the eighth world championship, I went for this for a long time and finally lived to the historic moment, we are happy with the whole team. This is the most prestigious award, we began to rejoice even before the announcement of the results, since we knew how much to get for Nikita, and saw how he did everything, ”Belyavsky emphasized.

The coaches of the Russian team did not withstand the stress. In particular, Valentina Rodionenko, the head coach of the national team, called the finale “a fight of nerves”.

“Dying” already before the crossbar, it was clear that the one with the nerves would win. It was not a struggle of combinations, but a struggle of nerves, and the guys survived. The fact that they won the psychological struggle makes us even more proud of them. We know that the Chinese begin to make mistakes when you approach them tightly, and it was important to survive here. But we were sure that the boys would stand, look what kind of guys we have, ”Rodionenko rejoiced.