Medvedev: You always want to be a bit cleaner and more precise

Andrei Medvedev has competed on vault in the first subdivision of the MAG qualifications at the European Championships. His example showed that the judging of men’s vault might be changing – he went for a Blanik as his second vault but got downgraded from a pike to a tuck and lost 0.4 in difficulty. In the past, even much more tucked vaults were credited as piked, so, surprised coaches submitted an inquiry but in vain.

Medvedev nevertheless is happy with the competition and hopes that his 14.533 score will hold up until the end of the day and will allow him to qualify to the vault final. He is currently leading the vault qualification.

Medvedev said to Gymnovosti:

“Overall, I can say that I’m happy with today’s competition. My vaults were good. It seems that there are new requirements at the UEG, they pay more attention to cleanliness, so they did not credit the full difficulty for my second vault. The vault was good, just a bit “dirty”, and because of that they did not credit the full difficulty which led to me getting 0.4 less. But I still hope, I’m pretty sure that it will be enough for the final. You always want to be a bit cleaner and more precise, but, in general, I did what I expected to do. In general, I’m very happy with the competition.”

Medvedev will compete at Challenge Cups in Osijek and Koper as a part of his preparation for the World Championships. He hopes to qualify to the Tokyo Olympics by making the final on vault at Worlds as this is currently the only event he is competing.

The live coverage of the European Championships was made possible thanks to the support of our patrons on S Patreon!

Buy cool gymnastics-themed t-shirts, hoodies, pillows, phone cases, and more at our store on Teepublic!