Great Britain cruises to European men's gymnastics team title, Italy wins historic silver

By the time Great Britain's horizontal bar anchor Jake Jarman hopped up to perform his routine Saturday (20 August) during the men's team final at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Munich, Germany, the 20-year-old needed better than just 6.200 to clinch the title.

The stuck landing on his full-twisting, double layout dismount was the exclamation on a dominating performance from Team GB that gave them their second-ever men's team title at the event. They totaled 254.295, nearly seven points ahead of Italy's 247.494. Turkey, which finished second during qualifying, won the bronze medal with a 246.162.

The silver medal for Italy is the first men's team medal at the Europeans for the squad.

GB started on the floor exercise, where they posted a 42.433 led by Jarman's 14.500. They went on to earn team totals of 41.465 and 42.166 on the pommel horse and still rings, respectively.

But it was the fourth rotation where their strength truly began to shine, as their spectacular vaulting rotation scored 44.700, more than a point better than any other team on the event. **Giarnni Regini-Moran'**s Kasamatsu double-twist and Jarman's Kas two-and-a-half received the highest marks at 14.900 and 15.200.

The fifth rotation saw 2019 world parallel bars champion Joe Fraser, Thursday's all-around winner, deliver on his signature event, recording a 15.166 as the team totaled a 42.599.

On the horizontal bar, the Brits were solid, earning a 40.932 with Jarman's 12.966 in the final spot more than enough to seal the gold medal.

"Everyone in the crowd got behind us every single apparatus, every single routine, couldn't have asked for a better crowd," Fraser said during an in-house interview afterward. "So thank everyone for supporting every single one of us."

The battle for silver and bronze came down to the final routines from Italy and Turkey with Turkey's Ahmet Onder competing first. Onder opened the door, slipping off the horizontal bar on a high-flying catch and release move early in his routine. His 12.600 score was just the opening that world floor exercise champion Nicola Bartolini needed.

Bartollini capitalised, as he delivered a clean and stylish routine to earn a 14.433 and secure the historic team silver.

For Turkey, it's only their second men's team medal at the Europeans, after they won silver at a depleted edition of the event in 2020 where many teams skipped the competition due to COVID-19 concerns. Saturday's bronze was also a show of strength after the squad rebounded after posting the second lowest total on the pommel horse.