Neither of the Israeli floor stars had a great showing on floor today. Artem Dolgopyat is just coming off a heel injury and was not able to prepare well. Shatilov was prepared better but still did not have a great routine on floor and finished just out of the final on high bar, losing 0.033 to the sixth place.
Shatilov said that he had much higher hopes for this competition:
“I had expectations, high hopes for this competition. Not everything worked out the way we planned to, we made some mistakes that shouldn’t be made, unforgivable mistakes, specifically on floor. Generally, I did high bar quite well, we’ll wait until the final results, but the floor routine was such a disappointment.”
Shatilov could have potentially done the all-around but opted not to as he wouldn’t be able to fight for the medals:
“Just making the all-around final wasn’t the goal, we’re trying to fight for medals, of course. If we’re looking at my chances in the all-around, I’m lacking the strength and I have some weak events, so I wanted to focus on specific events. And it’s too early to prepare for the all-around because I need to save strength for the World Championships in October.”
Artem Dolgopyat has been training with a heel injury and this likely affected his performance here. He competed just on floor (where he had a fall) and pommel horse where he almost got into the final. He says he felt pain on every landing:
“I think I wasn’t 100% ready here. Two weeks ago, I hit my heel badly, I was jumping on a trampoline and landed with my heel on a metal support. For two weeks, I couldn’t tumble, I couldn’t even walk, it was too painful to put weight on the foot. Then I started training but didn’t prepare enough. Today, I also had to add special foam when I taped my foot, so that it wouldn’t be so painful. Still, every landing reminded me of the injury”.
Andrey Medvedev qualified to the vault final in the third place. He hopes to upgrade both his vaults potentially and is working on Ri Se Gwang II:
“Generally, I’m happy with my vaults, I did them well. I realize that I need to work on the quality of the vaults and to upgrade if I want to improve and qualify to the Olympics. I’d already been doing Ri Se Gwang II in 2017 but then I got injured and stopped doing it. Now I’m slowly getting it back and I hope to get it until Worlds. I hope to make the final here and to improve my execution.”
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