The Open Israeli Championships continued on Saturday with the men’s competition. In addition to World and European medalists from Israel, Alexander Shatilov, Artem Dolgopyat and Andrey Medvedev, several foreign gymnasts participated in the competition. The most decorated guest was World and Olympic champion Oleg Verniaiev. He was joined by another Ukrainian temmate Petro Pakhniuk, who won silver on parallel bars at Euros and bronze on floor at the European Games this year. Artur and Vahagn Davtyan from Armenia were also medalists at the European Games in June. Vahagn Davtyan, who only competes rings, won silver on this event at the Games, and Artur Davtyan won gold on vault. Robert Tvorogal from Lithuania won a historic gold medal on high bar at the European Games. Nicolau Mir from Spain doesn’t yet have many international medals and his main strengths, floor and parallel bars, were also the strengths of several other competitors here.
If you asked me to make a prediction before the competition, I would bet on Oleg Verniaiev, Petro Pakhniuk or Artur Davtyan winning as these three are generally the strongest all-arounders among this field. Verniaiev is still recovering from multiple injuries but he won silver behind David Belyavskiy at the European Games just 1.5 months ago. Pakhniuk and Davtyan finished 4th and 5th respectively at that competition.
However, none of them had a good day yesterday. Verniaiev seems to still struggle with stamina and he was visibly tired by the end of four events, which led to a very unfortunate high bar routine with three falls. Pakhniuk had a nervous performance with falls as well.
Robert Tvorogal had the the best day among the top competitors and finished in first, 0.4 over the second place.
Artem Dolgopyat who has been plagued by injuries in the past couple of years looked great during the competition and was on track to win the all-around but it seemed that he had some sort of a muscle spasm while doing his last routine and was not able to finish it. Even without a full score on rings, he was able to win silver in the all-around.
The third place was taken by Alexander Shatilov. Both Dolgopyat and Shatilov usually compete just a few events but they are preparing all-around for Worlds in the hopes to qualify to the Tokyo Olympics.
Nicolau Mir finished fourth, with Pakniuk in 5th, Davtyan in 6th, Michael Sorokine in 7th and Oleg Verniaiev only in 8th place.
Andrey Medvedev is currently competing only on vault as this is going to be his ticket to the Olympics. He competed a piked Dragulescu for the first time in two years, an upgrade from the vault with which he won silver at Euros. Medvedev was injured on this vault two years ago, shortly before the 2017 Worlds but upgrading might be crucial for his Olympic qualification.
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