Denis Abliazin missed most of the season last year due to the Olympic qualification rules. He could not compete at the World Championships if he wanted to qualify an individual spot via Apparatus World Cups and he was left off the Russian team for Euros because they tried testing the Worlds team. Then, he was injured slightly before the Cottbus World Cup and spent time recovering. His 2019 season was off to a rocky start at the Russian Championships where he only took third place on rings and did not qualify to the vault final. He then had mixed performances in Baku (third on vault and fourth on rings) and Doha (did not qualify to either final), so his participation at the European Championships was in jeopardy. However, he told the media he was able to peak right at the European Championships and won gold on both events he competed:
“It was my fourth competition in a row in 1,5 months and I came here almost at top shape, hence the results. But I didn’t show my maximum today. My difficulty score today was 6.1 and in 2017, I did a 6.3 routine at the World Championships in Montreal. Last year, I just had many injuries, I spent a long time recovering from them. There are still some minor injuries left now, I’m not yet competing floor because of them.”
“The level of competition on rings was very high. I know all the rings specialists, I competed against them more than once. However, there’s more and more competition every year, there will be new rings specialists and we need to be prepared for it.”
“I’m very happy about winning gold on vault. It’s a new motivation for me. It’s an indicator that I can compete not only with the gymnasts from my own countries but with the gymnasts from all over the world as well. The Euros showed that no one could beat me and do better vaults than me. They couldn’t beat me even with my easier second vault. I think that I’ll bring my full difficulty on vault to the World Championships and I’ll be fighting for gold there. I’ll do 5.6 and 6.0 vaults there. My 6.0 vault is pretty consistent already, but I needed a bit more time to get it up to the level.”
Just like Artur Dalaloyan, Abliazin thought it was only fair that Andrey Medvedev’s vault score was raised and he took silver:
“Yes, I agree with the judges’ decision [about raising the score] because Andrey truly did a good vault. There was no ground for downgrading the vault. I realized that he wouldn’t surpass me in any case, but I’m happy for him that he got silver. It’s fair.”
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