Artur Dalaloyan was added to the vault final just minutes before the competition when Yang Hakseon who qualified in first had to scratch because of an injury. Dalaloyan had one of the highest difficulties in the final, two 5.6 vaults just like the silver medalist Igor Radivilov, but he fell and ended up in the last place. Turns out, his ankle injury was partially to blame for the unsuccessful performance:
“I competed with an injury, I got injured already in Canada, in training, two days before the final. It’s an ankle injury, I was vaulting and landed badly. I think my irresponsibility is to blame – I didn’t prepare for the training well enough.”
“I only learned that I’m in the final 15 minutes before it started. Frankly, I wasn’t prepared, I didn’t believe [that I had a chance to participate] until the end, even though I was the first reserve and knew the statistics that reserves often make the final. When the qualifications ended and I knew for sure that I didn’t make the final, I focused on healing my leg instead of pounding on it and developing the injury even further and I wasn’t training. On the day of the final, the head coach told me to just come to the training and see – what if I got in, and that’s what happened: I came, warmed up a bit and then I was told that I’m competing”.
Photo: Russian Federation of Artistic Gymnastics
