David Belyavskiy originally wasn’t even supposed to do the all-around at the European Championships and planned only to compete on two events. Then he was sent to Basel as an all-arounder but he told MatchTV that after the qualification, his competition almost came to an end because of strong back pain. In the end, he finished the competition with three medals – silver in AA and parallel bars and his first ever European title on horizontal bar.
Q: David, when you were competing on the horizontal bar, were you able to hear Nikita?
A: Yes, I heard only him. You can always hear a familiar voice.
Q: Last event on the last day of Euros. How did you manage to find the energy?
A: You need to prepare for competitions. Everyone knows Euros’ schedule, you need to prepare physically and we were fine in that sense. The only thing was that yesterday I was hit really hard by the all-aroun which took a lot of mental energy. And health issues also affected me.
Q: How serious were the health issues?
A: Before the all-around final, the coaches wanted to have me withdraw from the competition. In the qualification. I felt pain in my back on high bar before the dismount and the next morning, I just couldn’t bend my back.
Q: How were you trying to fix this?
A: With everything we could use. And I felt the issue throughout the whole competition.
Q: But you have three medals in the end.
A: It’s a great result. I couldn’t get one more but, I think, my daughter will forgive me.
Q: What were your loved ones saying during this competition?
A: They were happy after the qualification because I did what was needed – made the all-around final and three event finals. After the all-around final, there was a burst of emotions, and yesterday everyone got upset including me. And today… I think they will even be surprised with the gold on high bars because I was surprised by it. I didn’t expect this medal.
Q: After yesterday’s fall on pommel horse, how hard was it to forget it and focus on today’s finals?
A: It was easier to compete today both mentally and physically. Although I didn’t have physical issues, I had energy today just like I had it yesterday.
Q: When did you realize that everything would go well on high bar?
A: I actually went on high bar just two times today – the first one was in the warm-up hall, a couple of hours before the final, and the second – in the final. Essentially, I worked without a warm-up on the apparatus that was used in the final.
Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
Support Gymnovosti on Patreon from only $1 a month and help us bring to you even more awesome gymnastics coverage!
