European Titles Acquired in Rimini by Whitehouse, McClenaghan, And Petrounias

At the men’s artistic gymnastics European Championships held in Rimini, Italy on Friday, July 26, three apparatus finals were determined.

Artem Dolgopyat, the Olympic champion on the apparatus, was surpassed by reigning world floor champion Luke Whitehouse of Great Britain, who scored 14.866 to the Israeli’s 14.833. Third place went to Hungary’s Krisztofer Meszaros (14.600).

Rhys McClenaghan, an Irish pommel horse world champion who has won twice, won a third straight European gold before returning to the training gym to “continue his session”. A bronze medal was won by Cyprus’s Marios Georgiou, who had just been declared the all-around gold champion, while Loran De Munck of the Netherlands took home the silver medal with a score of 14.933.

With a score of 15,000, Greek legend Eleftherios Petrounias won his sixth European championship—which included gold at Rio 2016—in his storied career. Silver went to Nikita Simonov of Azerbaijan (14.900), while Adem Asil of Türkiye, the reigning champion, settled for bronze (14.900).