The first day of competition at the European Championships in Men’s Artistic Gymnastics on Wednesday (19 August) saw the home crowd ecstatic to see Illia Kovtun, formerly of Ukraine and representing Croatia for the first time, come away with the men’s all-around title with a score of 82.833.
That score was just 0.001 ahead of World Gymnastics 2’s Arsenii Dukhno, who had competed in the previous subdivision, finishing on a score of 82.832, with his compatriot, Daniel Marinov, rounding out the podium in third on 81.899 after the six apparatus.
The defending champion, Adem Asil of Türkiye, withdrew from the competition on Tuesday, with the Turkish Gymnastics Federation citing “anxiety, particularly during the dismounts”.
A history-making moment for Croatia to win a first ever all-around medal at the European Championships, the Arena Zagreb was hopping throughout courtesy of a group of local school kids, decked out in the iconic red and white checks renowned the sporting world over, who were singing and cheering throughout.
“I’m very happy,” said Kovtun via a Croatian translator. “I cannot believe this. I’m enjoying every second of it. This is my first gold medal in all-around, so I’m quite excited.”
Kovtun, who is a four-time European champion from the team event, horizontal bar and parallel bars, and who is also an Olympic silver medallist from Paris 2024 in the latter, was roared on in his first return to international competition since making the switch to representing the country that has hosted his training for the past few years.
Yet the moment nearly didn’t happen after Kovtun fell on the penultimate apparatus, the pommel horse. The 23-year-old and long-time coach, Iryna Gorbacheva, who has made the switch to Croatia with her charge, didn’t panic with Kovtun saying that it went through his mind that he might have lost out, “but my coach devised a tactic how to win the gold and everything went as planned”.
Quite what that tactic was he didn’t reveal.
