(Reuters) – Nikita Nagornyy won the vault title for his third gold medal at the world gymnastics championships in Stuttgart, while team mate Artur Dalaloyan ensured a one-two Russian finish on Sunday.
Artistic Gymnastics – 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships – Men’s Vault Final – Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, Stuttgart, Germany – October 13, 2019 Russia’s Nikita Nagornyy in action REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
Nagornyy nailed his Dragulescu vault en route to earning an average of 14.966 points — beating Dalaloyan by a slim margin of 0.033, while Ukraine’s Igor Radivilov took the bronze medal.
The Russian men have enjoyed a memorable week in Stuttgart, winning their first-ever team gold on Wednesday, before Nagornyy collected the all-around title two days later.
“The most important medal for me was the team medal, then the all-around medal and then this one (in vault),” Nagornyy said.
“Really I didn’t expect this when I was coming here, I thought I could win a bronze, but then the other gymnasts made some mistakes and that allowed me to win the gold medal.”
Romanian Marian Dragulescu, who won four world titles on the vault in 2001, 2005, 2006 and 2009, missed out on a podium finish after struggling to maintain his balance in his second vault attempt.
The 38-year-old, who qualified for his fifth Olympic appearance this week, finished fourth with 14.624.
BRITISH GLORY
Britain’s Joe Fraser won his first world gold medal with a spectacular routine in the men’s parallel bars final.
Ahmet Onder took silver for Turkey, while Japan’s Kazuma Kaya completed the podium.
Fraser, the youngest competitor in the event at the age of 20, scored 15.000 to become the first British gymnast to win a world medal of any color on the apparatus.
“It still hasn’t sunk in, still hasn’t sunk in. I think it might take a few weeks, maybe months,” said Fraser, who joined Max Whitlock and Beth Tweddle as Britain’s only gymnastics world champions.
“To be in the company of such great, great gymnasts that I’ve looked up to for my whole junior career and to be put up there with the likes of Max and Beth, I can’t comprehend how proud I am.”
Fraser’s victory took Britain’s medal tally for the championships to four after Whitlock regained his pommel horse world title and the Downie sisters – Becky and Ellie – picked up their first individual world medals on Saturday.
Arthur Mariano claimed Brazil’s first world title in the horizontal bar final, scoring 14.900.
Croatia’s Tin Srbic finished second, while Dalaloyan claimed his second medal of the day.
Reporting by Hardik Vyas in Bengaluru; editing by Clare Fallon and Pritha Sarkar