Petrounias: "World Championship is close!" (photo)
"To my left and to my right you see my real gold medals! In the middle you see a bronze! We've tried various changes this season that didn't give us what we wanted!" he initially said in his post, which was accompanied by photos with Vasiliki Millousi and their daughters, adding: "Certainly the last 2 weeks didn't help but all this bring to a conclusion! The route to Paris will be anything but easy, but with the people I have around me and by my side, I'm not afraid of anything and that's why we roll up our sleeves from Tuesday already because the World Championship is near!"
For the 8th time on the podium of the European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship, in his 11 appearances in total at the event, Lefteris Petrounias rose to the challenge of the Antalya event.
The "king of hoops" collected 14,733 points in the final of the competition and was ranked third, confirming for the umpteenth time his enormous class.
He took the bronze medal again on his debut at the event, in 2011 in Berlin, followed by six consecutive victories: in 2015 in Montpellier, in 2016 in Bern, in 2017 in Cluj, in 2018 in Glasgow, in 2021 in Basel and in 2022 in Munich.
The Greek Olympic gold medalist and World Champion wanted very much to get the gold to break Berki's record (7 golds) and continue his streak from 2015, but he couldn't. However, the fact that he got on the podium after two surgeries proves what a great athlete he is.
One should not forget that his participation in the European Championship was finalized shortly before the departure of the mission, having missed several training sessions recently. Even so, he added another medal to his rich collection...
The 32-year-old gymnastics champion scored 14,733 points (difficulty rating: 6,300 points, performance rating: 8,433 points), just like in the Holy Tuesday qualifier, a performance that placed him in 3rd place among the 8 finalists.
With a score of 14.733, Armenia's Vahagn Davtian, however, took 2nd place, prevailing in a tie with Petrounia because his program had a higher execution score (8.733 vs. 8.433).
The gold went to Turkish world champion Adem Asil, who scored 14,933 points.
The ranking of the final:
Adem Asil (Turkey) 14,933 points
Van Davtian (Armenia) 14.7333 points
Lefteris Petrounias 14,733 points
Marco Lodantio (Italy) 14,666 points
Nikita Simonov (Azerbaijan) 14,566 points
Cordey Tulloch (UK) 14,466 points
Artur Avetisyan (Armenia) 14,433 points
Sokratis Pillakouris (Cyprus) 14,233 points
* The Greek delegation will return on Easter Monday (17/04) and is expected to arrive at the airport "El. Venizelos" at 08:45 in the morning.
