Advertisements
Not interested enough to actually follow men’s qualification from Euros? Still vaguely want to keep up with the names and the news and how the hot ones are doing and whatnot? I hear you. Here’s a quick overview of what went down at men’s qualification today.
- Russians Artur Dalaloyan and Nikita Nagornyy qualified first and second into the Best Little Muscle Gorilla-Man final by a US WAG kind of margin, confirming their statuses as the heavy favorites to go 1-2. World champ Dalaloyan is the default pick for gold, but it wouldn’t take much of a missed day from him for Nagornyy to move ahead.
- Qualifying in 3rd place into the all-around final with a solid margin over the rest was Ahmet Onder from Turkey, very capable of winning that medal if he’s hitting during the final, but also very capable of suddenly being all “oops, my arms are a jelly” and allowing an opportunity for…like anyone? Perhaps 2017 bronze medalist James Hall or form favorite Marios Georgiou, who qualified in 4th.
- Russia advanced two competitors into every event final, also suffering a whole heap of 2per along the way with Nagornyy missing out on vault and floor despite finishing 3rd and 8th on those events, Dalaloyan getting pushed out of horse, and Poliashov getting pushed out of the PBars final. The punishment for finishing third among the Russians on any event is a one-week stint scraping Valentina’s bunions.
- Floor proved the deepest event and most difficult final to make in this year’s European class, but Artem Dolgopyat of Israel nonetheless qualified with a substantial lead. If he hits well in the final, Dalaloyan is likely the only one who can beat him, especially since Nagornyy went all OOB-festival to miss out. Shatilov also advanced to the final, so you’re going to be fine.
- Dom Cunningham did qualify among the top 8 on floor, but sadly a knee injury suffered on vault has cast doubt over the rest of his competition as we await news on its severity.
- Max Whitlock qualified in first place on pommel horse by a half point and has basically already won the final, let’s be honest. He also competed HB and got a score that would definitely have been among GB’s top 3 HB scores at worlds last year. This is a very “Olympic team of 4, huh…?” kind of move.
- “But how are the balds doing?!?!” I hear you asking. Among our special club of bald, balding, and bald-denying European pommel horse specialists, only Cyril Tommasone advanced to the final, with Seligman and Ude getting pushed too far down the standings and Bertoncelj and Merdinyan missing their routines.
- Rings or whatever. With Petrounias not competing this year, rings is wildly open. All 8 qualifying scores for the final were separated by only .233, with Igor Radivilov just leading. But that thing is anyone’s game.
- The big upset on rings was Ibrahim Colak not advancing to the final after incurring a 0.3 ND—they have 0.3 NDs on rings at Euros because they use that Smart Rings software to electronically determine hold time. That was enough to take Colak from what would have been 1st place to entirely out of the final. He was very much a medal favorite heading into the competition.
- The Russians are dominating vault, taking four of the top five spots in qualification, with only Igor Radivilov interloping. An encouragingly (and let’s be honest, surprisingly) strong performance from Denis Abliazin coming back from living the last two years in the wilderness fully integrating with a family of white rhinos has put him into both the vault and rings finals. By qualifying in 2nd on vault, Abliazin has established himself with Radivilov as those with the best chance of upsetting top qualifier Dalaloyan for gold.
- Potential vault finalists Loris Frasca and Marian Dragulescu both fell on their second vaults to miss out on the final. No Romanians advanced to any finals. Artur Davtyan also got OOBed out of the vault final, though he did qualify well into the AA final in 8th place.
- Oleg is still alive. And he didn’t even need an IV during any of his routines. Verniaiev has advanced to the final on both PBars and PH. Expecting a truly OLEG number on PBars may be a little much right now, but he’s going to be in with a good shot at a medal in that final against Dalaloyan and Nagornyy. His teammate Petro Pakhniuk had a little nasty of a day overall, but did qualify in solid position on PB.
- Marcel did not make the PB final on an E-score tiebreak against Brinn Bevan. No Germans advanced to any event finals.
- A semi-upset saw Dalaloyan qualify in first place on HB, outscoring both Zonderland and Srbic despite his overwhelming Russianness. Zonderland is 2nd and Srbic is 3rd right now, though you still have to imagine this will be an Epke v. Tin fight when it comes down to it in the final.
- Qualification did not go awesome for Switzerland, with Yusof and Baumann going to the AA final in just 12th and 13th place, though Gischard did qualify into both the floor and vault finals, and Baumann made the PB final.
- Women’s qualification begins tomorrow at an ungodly hour for those of us in the US. But Eythora, MDJDS, and Melnikova don’t competed until the 4th subdivision at 12:30pm ET.