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Verniaiev, Belyavski take 1, 2 in European Championships

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Ukraine's Oleg Verniaiev confirmed his position as Europe's leading male all around gymnast yesterday with a strong performance at the European Championships in Montpellier.  Verniaiev, who was competing with a tender ankle, is making a case for himself as a rival to reigning World and Olympic Champion Kohei Uchimura.

David Belyavski performed reasonably steadily here but for a stutter on pommel horse, finding a silver medal to complement the gold medal he won in Moscow two years ago.  If the elegant gymnast from Ekaterinburg can ever finally manage to hit all six apparatus in a row, without errors, he too could fight for gold at Worlds, alongside his Ukrainian friend and competitor.  He reminds me of Soviet Valentin Mogilnyi, 1990 European Champion, whose beautiful line on the apparatus was often marred by unpredictable errors.

Britain's Daniel Purvis competed wonderfully for third place.  Russia's second all arounder here, Nikolai Kuksenkov, was rather unsettled on the apparatus and ended up in 11th place.

You can find the full results here.




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