The engines warm up, the athletes tremble on the platform: everything is ready. From today the European Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Championships get underway with the first phase of the individual finals on the senior apparatus. On last Wednesday’s qualifying day, the Italian national team opened up a window of opportunity for the team finals on Sunday afternoon, obtaining a fifth place overall and direct qualification for the final stages of the team tournament. Not only team achievements achieved by the FGI boys, but also an unexpected bronze by Yumin Abbadini who was able to keep the Italian fans in suspense until the last exercise.
To qualify for the individual finals, the names of Abbadini stand out in the barre final with the seventh score and first reserve on floor exercise and horse; Maresca in the rings final with the fourth provisional score; Macchiati enters the final on parallel bars from the provisional sixth place.
The seniors’ sports day begins today at 6pm with the first part of the individual apparatus finals. Gymnasts from Ukraine, Great Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Israel, Cyprus and obviously Italy are called to the continental platform; exercises include free body, horse with handles and rings. The senior finals will be broadcast on Rai Sport (digital terrestrial channel 58) today from 5.50pm to 8.25pm and live streaming on Rai Play and Sportface.
The task of our national team in the two days of finals is to defend last year’s title obtained in Antalya, Turkey. Bringing home a good result in this first final phase means increasingly mortgaging a hypothetical triumph that will happen anyway
