Dalaloyan leads MAG qualification at Euros

Leading up to the European Championships, it was clear that the main battle in the all-around would be between Artur Dalaloyan and Nikita Nagornyy. Nagornyy made a few more mistakes yesterday and finished second in qualifications but it can all change if he has a clean day on Friday as he has more difficulty than Dalaloyan. Unfortunately, out of bound steps on floor kept Nagornyy out of the floor final as he was the third best Russian after Dalaloyan and Lankin. The level of competition on the Russian team was insane and the third best Russian was two-per-countried out of a final several times.

Oleg Verniaiev was able to survive the competition and did it even without pain killers. Denis Abliazin, who had his share of injuries and less than stellar performances at the World Cups recently, survived, too, and made finals on both rings and vault.

There were two unfortunate injuries on the day. Dominick Cunningham got lost in the air on vault, landed on a straight leg and immediately called for help. He posted an update that his major ligaments seem to be intact but he was in so much pain he passed out after the landing. Cunningham seemed to have a lot of problems on vault in the podium training as well, doing many unsuccessful vaults in a row long after the rest of the gymnasts finished their vault attempts.

Had an excellent start to my competition qualifying in 4th on floor scoring a huge 14.700 qualifying to the final! I then went to vault and on my first vault I got lost in the air and I landed on a straight leg. I was in a huge amount of pain which resulted in me blacking out… pic.twitter.com/CfuUv7pXI5

— Dominick Cunningham (@domcunningham) April 10, 2019

Artem Dolgopyat who is currently leading floor with a massive 15.366 (D 6.4) had a muscle spasm in his left arm while running towards the vaulting table. He managed to get enough block and land safely but had to scratch from parallel bars, his last event, as a preventative measure. He hopes to be fine by the floor final.

Full results of the competition – Smart Scoring.

The qualifications continue today with the women and you can follow them live on the Smart Scoring website.

Follow Rocker Gymnastics for quick hits during the competition and come back to Gymnovosti for the interviews afterwards!

Photo: E. Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation

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