Petro Pakhnyuk has won his first ever medal at the European Championships this month. His journey to this medal has been quite a long one, involving two nationality changes, but he feels like he’s finally reaching his potential. In addition, he finished sixth in the all-around, his highest ever finish at Euros and all that just a few months after becoming a father:
“To be a dad is an amazing feeling. I’m really lucky because my wife took all of the responsibility for our son, she’s the one who wakes up at night while I’m sleeping and preparing for training, she’s supporting me and helping me. I was sixth here in the all-around. My competitors don’t have kids, while I do and I still managed to take sixth place. After becoming a father, I’m only getting more motivated emotionally, I think it’s the victory that only keeps helping me. Believe me, I’ve never performed better than now. I’m 28 years old, my best result at the European Championships before that was 9th place four years ago. I’m still improving and developing and I’ll only keep doing that.”
Gennady Sartynsky, the head coach of the Ukrainian team, said he hopes that the silver on parallel bars will help Pakhnyuk believe in himself and go for a more difficult routine he has in store:
“For Petya, this medal showed that he can do it and that he needs to do more. He has another routine, a much harder one, about 6.5-6.6 in difficulty but he’s always afraid to do it. We, the coaches, are not afraid but he’s afraid. Well, now he needs to stop being afraid because today’s routine was enough for the European Championships’ medal but it won’t be enough for Worlds. At Worlds, he has to go all in.”
Support Gymnovosti on Patreon from only $1 a month and help us bring to you even more awesome gymnastics coverage!
Buy cool gymnastics-themed t-shirts, hoodies, pillows, phone cases, and more at our store on Teepublic!
