The reigning Olympic champion on floor Artem Dolgopyat came into the floor final at the World Championships in Antwerp as the top qualifier and was a heavy favorite to medal, possibly, even win gold. That would be his first gold medal at the World Championships and the first gold for Israel (his silver medals in 2017 and 2019 were the highest Israel’s finishes at Worlds).
Dolgopyat even withdrew from the all-around final where he was the 8th qualifier to rest before the floor final. But on Saturday morning, he woke at 5:30 AM because of his phone blasting a rocket attack alert. The rocket attacks were not in Antwerp, of course, but in his home city back in Israel, as the country suffered a barrage of rockets from Gaza lasting for hours. Dolgopyat said to One.co.il:
“I woke up to the sound of an [air raid] alert. I was scared. It was strange, I kept seeing there were [multiple] alerts. Then i heard that there were dead and wounded. Throughout the day, I didn’t know how to get it out of my head.”
As the news were coming in, Dolgopyat learned of hundreds people dead and injured from rocket fire and the massacre in the towns on the border with Gaza and dozens of people, including children and elderly, kidnapped by Hamas.*
As he was unable to go back to sleep or do anything but keep reading the news, the team staff spontaneously organized a training session in the hotel. Dolgopyat opted not to withdraw from the final despite the mental toll the situation was taking on him:
“It was clear to me that if I didn’t turn off my cell phone, I wouldn’t be able to compete. It was very difficult for me to disconnect. When I got the the arena, I told myself that I have to be in the competition and that’s it.”
His routine was less clean than in the qualification round and he had an uncharacteristic balance check when standing in the corner, but 14.866 was enough for the gold, ahead of Japan’s Minami Kazuki and Kazakhstan’s Milad Karimi:
“The routine was not perfect but the landings were without major errors. I could do more and when I saw the score I thought of a medal, I didn’t know what color. During the routine, I felt it was worse than it really way. I thought it was all lost as soon as I got off the floor. I didn’t know if it would be enough for the gold. But everyone in the final had mistakes. For me, it was clear that [mistakes] would happen after what I went through this morning.”
There was no usual loud and boisterous celebration from the Israeli team and Dolgopyat put black ribbons on the Israeli flag and on his arm to mourn the victims.
Dolgopyat wrote on his Instagram:
“A very difficult day for our country. I finished the day as the World champion but my mind and my heart are at home. I hope I was able to comfort you a little bit [with this victory”].
To the media, Dolgopyat said:
“I fulfilled my dream of getting the three gold medals from the biggest competitions [Euros, Worlds, and Olympics] and I can’t process it because I can’t really be happy. It’s a different situation. It’s hard for me to think about it. I still have some hope in my mind that in a few days, it will be over and I might be able to be happy.”
Many athletes celebrate anniversaries of their big medals but for Dolgopyat the anniversary of his Worlds gold will always be on the day of mourning. He said:
“I couldn’t celebrate. I was only thinking about the situation in Israel. I didn’t have one iota of joy at all. On my biggest day. I should have been the happiest person but I wasn’t. I heard the Israeli anthem and I had tears in my eyes, I was sad. That’s why we put black ribbons on the Israeli flag.”
The national team coach Sergei Vaisburg said:
“It’s a difficult day but Artem gave us some good moments. Based on his achievements, there is no athlete like Artem in Israel. I don’t think there will ever be, but I hope I’m wrong. He’s a great athlete who knows how to get the job done at the right moment and disconnect from all the noise.”
*That was the approximate count of casualties when Dolgopyat trained and competed. At the moment, the official count is over 2000 injured and 300 dead in Israel, most of them civilians. The count is expected to rise dramatically as many people are still considered missing and the authorities have not yet finished processing the bodies. Additionally, an unconfirmed number of people (but at least several dozens) were kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza.
