Oleg Verniaiev competed all six events in qualifications at the European Games, the first time since his surgeries in February. He placed 8th in qualification, with 81.632 and made AA, PH and PB finals, leading the qualification on pommel horse with a massive 15.133. However, he fell on vault and had a less than stellar performance on floor and high bar. After the competition, he said that he wasn’t really prepared on all six events and only started doing vaults onto hard surface here in Minsk:
“You see, it’s all improvisation. I was preparing two events more or less well, my two events. And I did them quite well, actually. The rest was pure improvisation, almost everything without warm-ups, all the routines were downgraded. I managed, I didn’t die, great, let’s move on. That was more about surviving than about competing, to put it bluntly.”
“I’ve only done two or three vaults in Ukraine onto soft surface before we left, and then at the podium training, I vaulted exactly the same, onto my knees. And I guess, I was a bit afraid [to fall] today, and that’s why I landed like that again.”
Verniaiev was originally supposed to do two vaults but decided to scratch the second vault after the unfortunate landing, especially since his teammate Igor Radivilov was surely making the final and only one athlete per country could qualify:
“I’m used to doing the second vault unprepared. Everything depended on Igor. When I saw that he did his vaults well, I realized it made no sense for me [to do the second vault]. It’s his territory, there’s no point in me going there. If he, god forbid, would make a mistake, then I would do it. But then again it would be without preparation, so it’s not for sure that I’d do it well. And since he did his vaults great, I decided not to bother.”
Verniaiev is known for being a workaholic and considering surgeries and rehabilitation procedures “vacations”, so when asked whether he plans on having a vacation after this competition, he said:
“I guess not, because the Worlds are very important. I guess I’ll rest when I’m forty”.
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