Italy win artistic gymnastics team gold at European Championships 

A big smile spread across Asia D'Amato's face as she completed the final tumble of her last piece of apparatus, the floor routine, at the women's European Championships in Munich, Germany, on Saturday (13 August). The 19-year-old knew that Italy were about to claim gold in the artistic gymnastics team competition.

Needing only a relatively low score of 8.96 to take the title ahead of Great Britain, the all-around champion from Thursday could enjoy the final few flourishes of her routine, and, on finishing, thumped the floor with delight while her team-mates celebrated wildly, claiming their first gold medal in the event since 2006.

"This medal is worth even more (than the individual all-around gold) because winning it together is the best thing we could wish for," Asia told Olympics.com. "This gold is the first step to get prepared in the best way for Paris 2024, where we want that medal that eluded us in Tokyo."

Great Britain, who had pipped Italy to the bronze medal in Japan, were thrilled to have claimed second place, with a strong performance from all-around silver medallist Alice Kinsella, while Germany won a historic bronze in front of a home crowd who were on their feet applauding their nation's first-ever medal in a European gymnastics team competition.

Tears were also shed for one of their team, 33-year-old Kim Bui who will retire after the apparatus finals on Sunday (14 August).

Competition head-to-head

Following on from the qualification competition on Thursday (11 August), which also doubled as the individual all-around competition in which Italy claimed gold and bronze and GB silver, the team event always looked like it was going to be a showdown between Italy and Great Britain.

However, Italy led after the first apparatus, the vault, and never relinquished their grasp on the gold medal performing routine after routine with just minor errors despite the pressure of three gymnasts performing and three scores counting.

The format was also such that two nations performed on each apparatus with a gymnast from each country alternating on each event. The top two qualifying teams – Italy and Great Britain – were in a group together so it was literally toe-to-toe performing and who could hold their nerve.

Italy’s Technical Director, Enrico Casella, was thrilled with his team afterwards saying: “165 points with just three athletes without dropping the lowest score is quite a statement. It’s not easy for any team in the world to do that. We deserve to be European champions because we did better than the other nations.

"It started well because we immediately gained 0.2 points on Great Britain in the vault, the apparatus where they are best at. Everyone was impeccable in both the bars and beam, then the floor was the final apotheosis.”

Great Britain had a few errors but their difficulty was such that the team could still place second, the result matching GB women’s best European team placing.

Kinsella scored an impressive 14 on uneven bars with Georgia-Mae Fenton adding 13.700. Ondine Achampong steadied herself for beam after making an error on bars, scoring 13.700 with Kinsella scoring 13.733.

Their floor exercises wowed the crowd, particularly the Gadirova twins – Jessica and Jennifer – who are renowned for their artistry.

“Honestly (this silver) feels amazing," said Kinsella. "We qualified in second and to do that again, after making a few mistakes, feels unbelievable. I’m really super proud of every single one of them.”

Achampong, who appears to be the ringleader in some entertaining team TikTok videos that have gone viral, stated: “We have a great team spirit. We just wanted to go out there and do our routines. We got silver and did our job.”

Twin nations

The twin theme also threaded through the Italian team with Asia's sister Alice D'Amato also instrumental in the team's gold medal.

"After doing well at the uneven bars today and in the qualification I want to win gold tomorrow (Sunday)," said Alice, clearly having got the taste for hardware now.

Martina Maggio, almost the gold medallist in the all-around until a slip on bars cost her the title, and fan favourite and three-tike Youth Olympic Games gold medallist Giorgia Villa were hugely impressive, and beamed every time they completed a routine safely building confidence throughout the squad as the competition went on.

"We are a very united team," said Villa, "and this has helped us achieve this result. We fought despite feeling the pressure, together we are stronger.

"After the qualification, we knew we could aim for gold, and now we are really happy about it, I have no words to describe it.

"This medal means a lot to me, winning a medal after so long and with the team means double because they are like my sisters."

Fight for bronze

Meanwhile, the third- and fourth-placed finishers on Thursday – France and Germany, respectively – were competing together and looking likely to be the ones vying for a bronze, but it was Hungary, seventh in qualification, who gave Germany the closest tussle for the final place on the podium in the end.

With just 0.400 of a mark separating Germany from Hungary heading into the final piece of apparatus, the home side looked the more likely to claim bronze as the team were on the high-scoring vault whereas Hungary were on the nervy beam.

Bui made her part count performing a clean full twisting Yurchenko while compatriot Elisabeth Seitz did the same to leave Sarah Voss to vault her heart out with a double twisting version. Boom! A spot-on landing that had the crowd on their feet and her team-mates in tears.

“I don’t think I had any standing ovation like this before," said Bui. "It was just really amazing, such a great atmosphere, it was so cool, so great…It was so nice to have this at the end of my career.”

Beam maestro Pauline Schaefer-Betz also commented on the energy of the crowd: “It’s really special because the home crowd was just amazing. I decided to use this energy, this atmosphere to push myself.”

Bui received the bumps and this joyful end to the competition was appropriate given the Olympiahalle is the very same venue made famous 50 years ago by Olga Korbut at the Munich Olympics.

The diminutive pig-tailed Russian performed the most daring gymnastics ever seen, leading to oohs and aaahs from the crowd as she performed the first somersault ever seen on beam.

The final day of the women's event is the apparatus finals taking place Sunday (14 August) where the gymnasts are eyeing more medals.

"I need just some fixes in the floor and I should be good for the final tomorrow,” said Jess Gadirova, the reigning European champion on the apparatus.

Alice D'Amato meanwhile, has high aims too: "After doing well on the uneven bars today and in the qualification I want to win gold tomorrow."

The showdown is not over yet.

The event is part of the multi-sport European Championships Munich 2022, with women’s gymnastics running through 14 August. The men are scheduled to compete 18-21 August.

This year’s competition is one of the qualifiers for the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships to be held in Liverpool, England, in October and November. The three team medallist have booked their places.

Vault qualifiers

Aline Friess, France
Lihie Raz, Israel
Asia D'amato, Italy
Jessica Gadirova, GB
Valentina Georgieva, Bulgaria
Zsofia Kovacs, Hungary
Camille Rasmussen, Denmark
Lisa Vaelen Belgium
Csenge Maria, Bacskay, Hungary

Bars qualifiers

Alice D'amato, Italy
Naomi Visser, Netherlands 
Giorgia Villa, Italy
Kim Bui, Germany
Elisabeth Seitz, Germany
Alice Kinsella, GB
Georgia-Mae Fenton, GB
Lorette Charpy, France

Beams qualifiers

Ana Barbosu, Romania
Emma Leonie Malewski, Germany
Asia D'amato, Italy
Giorgia Villa, Italy 
Carolann Heduit, France
Ondine Achampong, GB
Pauline Schaefer-Betz, Germany
Alba Petisco, Spain

Floor qualifiers

Martina Maggio, Italy 
Jessica Gadirova, GB
Angela Andreoli, Italy 
Naomi Visser, Netherlands
Jennifer Gadirova, GB
Zsofia Kovacs, Hungary
Ana Barbosu, Romania
Morgane Osyssek-Reimer, France