Belyavsky's victory and Melnikova's fourth medal: Russian gymnasts won gold and two silver medals on the last day of the European Championship

Breakthrough of Belyavsky and failure of Nagorny

On Sunday, the European Championships in Artistic Gymnastics in Basel ended with five finals on individual apparatus.

For the Russian Nikita Nagorny, these competitions turned into an incredibly grueling marathon - he performed for three days in a row without days off, and there were still two exits to the platform ahead.

The day before, the owner of two gold and two silver medals even complained that he had no strength left to perform, but he was not going to give up the chance for two more awards.

Moreover, one of the finals was held in the vault, in which Nagorny is the reigning world champion, and won the European championship back in 2015.

In the all-around, he earned 15 points in this form - such an assessment was not conquered in Basel even by narrow specialists in jumping.

Nagorny's first attempt was practically a success. He performed a half-turn double somersault, but stepped forward on the touchdown and earned 14,600 points. It was possible to fight for a medal with this result, especially since he was not going to reduce the difficulty on the second jump. Nagorny did a good double back somersault, bending over, but again he did not have enough strength to land. The Russian gymnast did not have time to open up, fell on his back and did a somersault back. A beautiful way out of the situation had no effect on the judges, and they gave only 13.466 points. The average mark was enough for Nagorny only to take seventh place.

The next type of program for men was exercises on uneven bars, where Russian gymnasts also showed very good results during the European Championship.

In the all-around, Nagorny scored the same 15 points, and David Belyavsky got 15.366 points at all, exceeding the results of all athletes in qualification.

Nagorny, who has stepped onto the platform for the 17th time in a row, noticeably simplified his program.

In the end, his mark for the difficulty turned out to be the second from the end, ahead of only the result of the Turk Akhmet Onder, who fell in the course of the performance.

The workmanship was also slightly lacking, and the final score was 14.666.

With her, the European champion in the all-around took sixth place.

Belyavsky, on the other hand, performed much better, at a high pace and with a quality landing. However, he also failed to win - the judges rated the Russian at 15,133 points, and by that time another Turkish gymnast Ferhat Aryjan was in the lead. With a score of 15,300 points, he defended the title of European champion, and Belyavsky took second place, ahead of the two bronze medalists by 0.033 points.

Nagorny could finally watch the competition on the crossbar as a spectator - according to the results of the qualification, he was only the first substitute.

But with the seventh result, Beliavsky made his way to the final, for whom it was the last chance to take away gold from Basel after two silver medals.

The Russian gymnast finally took advantage of this opportunity - although the complexity of Belyavsky's program left much to be desired, he performed all the elements much cleaner than the favorites.

He scored 14.066 points and became the first European champion on the crossbar - before his best result was bronze.

Your 2021 European Champion on high bar ... David Belyavskiy (RUS)! # Basel2021pic.twitter.com/YC5TQCgQlK

- European Gymnastics (@UEGymnastics) April 25, 2021

Silver Melnikova and the fall of Listunova

For gymnasts, the first final of the day was held in exercises on the balance beam.

This type of program was the only one where Russian athletes did not compete for medals.

Vladislava Urazova, who won silver on the uneven bars the day before, was only 11th in qualification and became the third substitute.

As a result, two gymnasts refused to participate in the final, but the turn of the Russian woman never came.

The best was Melanie de Jesus dos Santos from France, who was the only one who showed the difficulty at the level of six points.

But at the same time, her result was only 13,900 points and was lower than what the Russian woman Victoria Listunova showed in the all-around final - she then obeyed 14,066 points.

But in floor exercises, the representation of Russians could reach at least three if the rules allowed all eight best athletes to fight for medals, regardless of nationality.

In qualifying, Melnikova and Listunova took the first two places, and Urazova just closed the top eight, but again was left without a final.

Melnikova was one of the first and immediately set the bar high with her acrobatic movements and well-defined turns.

However, in the end she could not cope with the rotation of the "helicopter" and lost her balance on it.

The judges rated the performance of the Russian woman at 13,900 points, reducing her difficulty by one-tenth.

Melnikova was used to getting at least 14 points for floor exercises and now she could lose leadership at any time if someone tried to challenge her.

For Russian fans, it would be optimal if the result of Melnikova exceeded Listunov.

But the European champion in the all-around could not do it.

She fell after a bundle with three screws and scored only 12.033 points - this was enough only to bypass the Frenchwoman Caroland Eduy, who was injured during the performance.

Melnikova remained the first until the British woman Jessica Gadirova came out on the carpet.

Although her performance was not as technically difficult as that of the Russian woman, the performance impressed the judges more.

Gadirova scored 13.966 points and again, as in the vault, was quite a bit ahead of Melnikova, who won her second silver and fourth medal out of five in Basel.