In 2018, Artur Dalaloyan became the all-around World champion, the first champion from Russia since Nikolai Kryukov in 1999. This year, however, has been full of ups and downs for him. At the Russian Championships in March, he finished 17th in the all-around qualification and had to withdraw from the final due to a stomach virus. A month later, at the European Championships, he was back and won silver in the all-around. At the Russian Cup in August, he competed shortly after the birth of his daughter and that likely affected his performance. He finished third in the all-around standings, scoring 85+ on both days of the competition, well below his capabilities.
Coming to the World Championships, it was clear to Dalaloyan that Nagornyy had a lead over him at the moment and if both hit, Nagornyy would win:
“I actually knew from the start that I was not challenging for the gold right now, because my level of preparedness isn’t great. To defend the title is definitely harder than to win it for the first time. It’s not even that defending is harder but the preparation is harder – to prepare as seriously and to work as hard. That’s the difficulty because you don’t have as much motivation anymore.”
“A year ago, I won this gold. This year Nikita did. I’m ok sharing it with him, it’s great. I got my won medal as well and I’m really happy with how I did. Next year, it will be a completely different story. The Olympics Games are coming and I’ve never been to the Games in my career, so next year, I’m going to work really hard, and I’ll especially focus on pommel horse, parallel bars, and high bar.”
Dalaloyan has been struggling with pommel horse for most of his career but he’s working really hard on upgrading it as he knows this is the event that might hold him back:
“The score on the pommel horse was a bit low. I’d like to get a higher score, of course. As a professional, obviously, I can find all the deductions they took. But I’m working on it. For example, last year, at the World Championships, I got 13.4 on this event. Today, I got 14.0. It’s an incredible improvement for me but there’s still more to strive for.”
Valery Alfosov, the head coach of the Russian men’s team, said Dalaloyan needs a bit more time to perfect the current routines and to add some upgrades:
“This season has been very successful for us. We won the European Championships, the European Games, and now the World Championships. Nikita has a higher difficulty than Artur, he improved after the World Championships in Doha. But Artur also got new routines – on floor, pommel horse, and high bar. There are some additions for the future, he just needs time to make those routines consistent.”
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