While the Russian team dominated the WAG competition, on the men’s side, we saw similar domination from the Ukrainian team. Ukraine won gold in the team competition and five of the seven available individual golds. Illia Kovtun who won AA bronze at Junior Worlds last month was especially successful at this competition. He won the all-around gold, golds in high bar and parallel bars finals and a silver on floor. Nazar Chepurnyi won gold on pommel horse and floor and a silver on rings. The third member fo the team, Volodymyr Kostiuk, did not get a chance to compete in the all-around final, as he was replaced by Nazar Chepurnyi, but won bronze on pommel horse and silver on parallel bars in the event finals.
Ukraine sure wishes Kovtun was eligible for the Tokyo Olympics as they need another all-rounder to complete the team and, according to Oleg Verniaiev, at the recent verifications Kovtun and Chepurnyi placed higher than seniors (although Verniaiev is still recovering from an injury). Chepurnyi will turn senior next year and hopes to make the Olympic team next year.
Kovtun was able to show these extremely impressive results despite a recent wrist surgery:
“Today [before the all-around final] our coach gave me and Nazar a task – to take the first and second place! How she likes to say: “Who will end in which place – decide for yourself!” At the recent Junior World Championships, where I took 3rd place, I lost only to the Japanese who are not here in Baku. However, this time, too, it was a huge responsibility and it was not easy.”
“We had three weeks to prepare for this competition and, unfortunately, I was completely out of the preparation. I had a minor surgery on my wrist, for four days, I was wearing a drain tube, traveled to change the dressing on the wound, and for more than a week, I could not go to the gym. I could not even work on conditioning, because of the risk of infection.”
“This morning, we were cheerful and ready to compete. Our coach Irina Vladimirovna knows how to put us in the right mindset for the competition. Nazar and I were rotating together and it is so much easier when the friend’s shoulder is next to you. Our other gymnast and friend Vova Kostiuk also was with us the whole time during the final, like a second coach.”
“After the fifth event, I became the leader and my coach said to me to just go out and do my job. It was very tense, especially when Nazar did not manage to do well on high bar. I always go out to this event with my coach. And we did it!”
After winning two golds on the second day of event final, Kovtun said he worked hard to remain calm during the competition:
“Before the competition, I focused as hard as possible so that I would not be nervous, I was in a very serious mindset in order for the Ukrainian anthem to play twice for me today. Everything worked out. We worked really hard and everything went great, we won a lot of medals”.
Nazar Chepurnyi did not have a great performance in the all-around final but had a great competition in the event finals:
“The first day of the event finals went well. On floor, I took first place, successfully completing my routine, I managed to achieve my goal. On pommel horse, I just needed to do my routine well. We cleaned up one element, in general the routine turned out “clean”. I’m glad that we won a medal. On rings, we were expecting a medal. I tried to do my routine the best and it so happened that I finished second.”
Photo: Ukrainian Olympic Committee
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