Russian vault and rings start Denis Abliazin had to miss the 2018 World Championships in order to preserve his eligibility for a nominative spot he’s trying to earn through World Cups. This year, he won gold on both rings and vault at the European Championships and also went back to training floor again – the event he had to give up for a while due to nagging injuries. However, by the time of the World Championships, the injuries caught up with him and he ended up not doing floor in the qualifications and performing only on rings in the team final:
“I have some problems with my feet, some old injuries, really old, from the Olympics Games. Sometimes, they aren’t letting me train properly. But, generally, I’m ok, I did rings in quite a high level today, I helped the team. In the qualification, I helped the team on both rings and vault.”
Yesterday, he helped the Russian men’s team to win its first ever gold medal. He says competing on only one event and not being able to do more at such an important competition adds extra pressure:
“It’s a lot of responsibility. You compete on only one event, knowing that the guys are doing three or four events. When you only do one event, you have to give the highest score. I can’t even express in words how enormous this responsibility is.”
Abliazin was already a World champion on vault and multiple World and Olympic medalist, but the first men’s team medal for Russia meant a lot to him:
“It’s amazing but the realization that we’re World Champions now hasn’t come yet, it will come later. Right now it’s exhaustion, we’re emotionally spent. I think we’ll realize tomorrow that we’re World Champions now.”
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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