Davtyan brothers had a blast at the European Games, with Vahagn winning silver on rings and Artur winning gold on vault in the following final.
In the all-around, Artur Davtyan hoped to win a medal but ended up finishing fifth:
“Generally, I didn’t perform in the final as well as I wanted to. I made a mistake on my strong event [vault], quite a big mistake. Looking at the scores, if I did everything well, I could make the top three. It’s sad – you train, you suffer so much, and then you only get one chance. You either do it or not and you either get a medal or don’t.”
“It’s my first time at such a competition, it’s almost like Olympics but for Europe. But overall, I know all the participants, we always compete together and it’s not the first time I got fifth, I’ve been fourth, fifth, and sixth.”
Artur Davtyan competed in the vault final right soon after his older brother won a silver on rings and this medal inspired him. He ended up sticking his first vault and almost sticking the second:
“I did my vaults very well, I’m so happy. When my brother got second, I got so happy and this helped me to go out and do well. It gave me a push, I was very happy and I wanted to go out and compete. My brother only does one event, he has a problem with his Achilles. After tearing it, he stopped doing other events. He’s very strong and he’s been especially good on rings since he was a child. And I’ve always been good on vault. I do all six events but vault is my signature event.”
Davtyan plans to upgrade on vault but his main goal is to improve overall execution.
Earlier this year, at the European Championships, he also talked about the difficult situation with gymnastics competitions being hosted by Azerbaijan. Due to the ongoing war between the two countries, Armenia boycotts all competitions hosted in Baku. This led to Armenian artistic gymnasts being unable to qualify to the Youth Olympic Games last year and to participate at the European Youth Olympic Festival this year. Next year, the MAG European Championships will take place in Baku (WAG Euros will be hosted in Paris), which means that Davtyan and his teammates won’t be able to compete there. He says it’s especially upsetting during the Olympic year, since Euros would be the only big competition for the gymnasts who won’t qualify to the Olympics:
“Of course, it’s upsetting, we want to compete. Next year, there are only the European Championships, there are no World Championships. Those who’ll qualify to the Olympics will have one big competition but those who won’t qualify, will not have any big competitions at all. You train all this time and you don’t get a chance to compete. There will only be World Cups but those aren’t major competitions.”
The head coach of the Armenian MAG team Atop Serobyan also said that not participating at big competitions in Baku hurts the athletes as it affects their chances to get an army service deferral.
Photo: A1plus.am
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