Milad Karimi
Athletes competing in men’s artistic gymnastics from 14 countries set, matched, or broke records for their nations at the world championships in Antwerp, Belgium, making history in the sport and inspiring future generations of athletes to follow in their footsteps.
View the complete list of world ranking records.
ARMENIA
Vahagn Davtyan became the third Armenian gymnast to place fourth on rings, following in the footsteps of Artur Tovmasyan, who was the first from the program to rank this high in 2018, and his Antwerp teammate Artur Avetisyan, who finished fourth last year.
AZERBAIJAN
Following a super strong and consistent season on rings, it was fitting to see Nikita Simonov break his own world ranking record on this event by finishing fifth in Antwerp. His and the program’s previous best was seventh place, which Simonov earned in 2018.
CHINA
Another rings record! China’s only title in Antwerp came on an event where they are historically one of the absolute best teams ever. This was the second gold medal on rings for Liu Yang after he also won in 2014, and it was China’s 10th overall rings gold in history, with Li Ning (1985), Dong Zhen (1999), Chen Yibing (2006, 2007, 2010, 2011), Yan Mingyong (2009), and Lan Xingyu (2021) also on the list. The only country with a greater number of rings titles is the Soviet Union with a total of 13.
GERMANY
Lukas Dauser became the first athlete from Germany as we know it today to win the title on parallel bars, with his win the best finish on this event since Helmut Bantz won the bronze in 1954!
If you want to include Germany in all of its forms on this list, however, we could call this the second parallel bars title for the team, as Sylvio Kroll of East Germany won the gold in 1985.
GREAT BRITAIN
With a brilliant first vault in his final competition – a roundoff entry onto the vault table, three and a half twists in flight, and a stuck landing – Jake Jarman became the first British man to win the world title on vault. His success came after a 10 year medal drought on this event, with Kristian Thomas becoming the first vault medalist for the program when he won bronze in 2013.
IRELAND
A year ago, Rhys McClenaghan made history when he became the first Irish man to win a medal at world championships when he won gold on pommel horse. This year, he made history again when he won a second gold on the event, making him Ireland’s first back-to-back champion!
ISRAEL
Though he won the Olympic gold on floor in Tokyo, Artem Dolgopyat never seemed to have the same luck at worlds. He won the silver medals in both 2017 and 2019, but this year, the title finally became his, making this not only Israel’s first gold medal just on floor, but Dolgopyat is now his program’s first world champion in history!
Additionally, the Israeli team as a whole performed very well here to finish 16th in qualifications, a massive improvement after not qualifying a full team to worlds last year. Previously, the team’s best performance had been 22nd place, achieved in 1979, 1989, and 1991.
JAPAN
Japan is in an exclusive club of nations that have already won gold on every event – multiple times! – so while they couldn’t break any records here, they did add a few more golds to their collection.
Hashimoto Daiki had an incredible meet to win the all-around title, the second of his career after he also won in 2022, and Japan’s 11th all-around title in history, with Kenmotsu Eizo (1970), Kasamatsu Shigeru (1974), Tomita Hiroyuki (2005), and Uchimura Kohei (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015) also on the list.
He also won his first high bar title at worlds here, becoming the seventh man to achieve this after Ono Takashi (1962), Nakayama Akinori (1966), Kenmotsu Eizo (1970), Kasamatsu Shigeru (1978), Kashima Takehiro (2003), and Uchimura Kohei (2015).
Finally, the Japanese team won its seventh gold medal at worlds following an eight-year drought, with the title last theirs in 2015. Prior to that, the team had won the title at every world championships from 1962 through 1978.
KAZAKHSTAN
I’ve never seen Milad Karimi compete as well anywhere as he did here, where he broke two program records while winning the second medal in Kazakhstan’s history. On floor, Karimi won the bronze medal, becoming the country’s first medalist on this event and breaking Sergei Fedorchenko’s fourth-place record from 1996, and then on high bar, he finished fourth place, breaking his own fifth-place record from 2021.
MONGOLIA
While Mongolia didn’t really have anyone in the medal mix here, we still saw some tremendous improvement on the all-around front as Usukhbayar Erkhmebayar finished 84th in qualifications. Prior to Antwerp, the country’s top all-arounder was Niamdavaa Zagdabazar, who finished 102nd in 1966.
TÜRKIYE
On an individual level, this wasn’t the best showing for Türkiye at worlds given the country’s recent history making finals and winning medals, including the rings title in 2019 and 2022, as well as a parallel bars medal in 2019. But the goal this year was to qualify a team to the Olympic Games, and they managed to make it happen with a 10th-place finish in qualifications, the best-ever ranking for the Turkish team after improving on an 11th-place finish in 2022.
UKRAINE
Though he came into the all-around competition a bit of an outlier after having finished in 19th place in qualifications, Illia Kovtun stunned in the final to finish second, setting the record for Ukraine’s best all-around ranking in history. Prior to this, Ukraine had won a pair of bronze all-around medals, from Oleg Verniaiev in 2019 and then from Kovtun in 2021.
UNITED STATES
The U.S. men’s team had one of its most successful world championships competitions in the past decade, winning its first team medal since 2014 while every member of the team made at least one individual final apiece, with Fred Richard winning all-around bronze while Khoi Young won silver medals on pommel horse and vault.
Though the team accomplished a great deal, most of what they did wasn’t record-breaking in terms of the rankings, aside from Young’s vault medal, which was only the second time in history a U.S. athlete won silver on that apparatus, coming 10 years after Steven Legendre first did it in 2013.
UZBEKISTAN
Similar to what we saw from Israel, the team from Uzbekistan missed qualifying to worlds completely in 2022, but came back this season with a vengeance, finishing in a record-setting 17th place. Prior to Antwerp, the team’s best ranking had been 22nd place in 2011.
Article by Lauren Hopkins
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By: Lauren
Title: The MAG Record Breakers in Antwerp
Sourced From: thegymter.net/2023/10/13/the-mag-record-breakers-in-antwerp/
Published Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2023 19:52:10 +0000
