Artem Dolgopyat has been known for his floor work for a while now. He started his senior career in 2015 but his first big success came in 2017, when he won silver on floor at the Montreal World Championships. In 2018, he won silver on floor at Euros and in 2019 silver again at both Euros and Worlds. His medal performances were often accompanied by difficult injuries and he even considered retiring at some point because his back pain was unbearable.
He was on the Israeli junior team that made the final and placed 5th at the 2014 European Championships and he’s one of the only two member of these team that are still competing. The other one, Michael Sorokine, is on the national team but did not attend the 2020 Euros. Israel is now slowly building a team that can qualify to team finals at senior competitions and this year, they got the experience of competing in a team final and finished only one step from a medal. Dolgopyat was also the first Israeli gymnast to win two medals at the same European Championships and only the second senior Israeli to become European champion (Alexander Shatilov won gold on floor in 2013). Israel left Mersin with four medals overall – Alexander Myakinin won bronze on high bar in his first ever European event final and junior Eyal Indig won silver on pommel horse.
Dolgopyat would have been a big contender for gold on floor even at fully-attended Euros but the withdrawal of several big gymnastics countries likely opened the door for him to win a medal on vault as well. He talked to Ynet about the competition:
“This was a really exhausting week. It was the first time in my life that the competition was so difficult for me and it ended with the sweetest prize possible, even though physically it was extremely hard. I endured it and it ended up quite good”.
“Yes, there were errors as well [in my floor routine], but I did what I was supposed to and finally, I took the European gold and I hope to continue further. When I stood on the medal podium… It wasn’t the first time I heard the Israeli anthem playing at regular competitions, but we’re talking about the European Championships here. I was in heaven. I was excited and didn’t know what to do with myself when the whole team cheered on me and screamed, everyone said “good job!”. My phone is full of congratulations”.
“We were preparing for the championships for a month, with three quarantines. We kept going in and out [of quarantine], it was really hard to prepare and still, I managed to do this and I felt quite good before the competition. We did the job both as a team and as individuals. Only yesterday, I did four events [in the team final], which is something really hard for me, and to do floor and vault [finals] on the next day, when I was in a lot of pain in the morning… I knew that I had to gather myself and do the minute and ten seconds the best I can, and only in the evening I can rest”.
When asked whether he felt like medals from this competition will have an asterisk attached to them, he said he doesn’t think so:
“Even before this, we won a lot of medals. We did everything possible and in the qualifiation, I was second. It was a really difficult competition. Others also got high scores, there was a high level of competition”.
Dolgopyat upgraded his first vault for the final at Euros and he hopes that injuries won’t interfere with his progress on vault and he can get into the finals at further competitions:
“I’ve strived for this for many years. I have a lot of potential on this apparatus. I had foot problems at big competitions and I stopped [competing on vault] in order to save myself for floor, and if everything will be fine, I hope for the final or even a medal at the Olympics”.
In another interview he said:
“I always say that in life, you have to move step by step. I focused on floor at first, I knew that I could fulfill my dream to become a European champion. After I won, I got really excited, I couldn’t believe it. After that, I started preparing for vault, I went all in, upgraded my difficulty compared to the qualification and succeeded”.
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