Darja Varfolomeev has once again underlined her position as an exceptional gymnast and was crowned the most successful athlete at the European Championships in Varna with three titles.
One day after her first all-around gold, the 19-year-old Olympic champion also won the decisions with the ribbon and the ball. Viktoria Steinfeld, the second German finalist, came eighth with the ribbon.
At the first continental title fights, in which the Russians and Belarusians were again allowed to compete under their own flag and anthem, the Schmidener received the day’s highest score of 30,000 points for her band exercise. With the ball, Varfolomeev won with 29.550 points ahead of Bulgaria’s Stiliana Nikolova, who had the same number of points. The decisive factor was the 0.1 point lower difficulty for the performance of Germany’s 2024 Female Athlete of the Year.
Varfolomeev fourth with the hoop
On Saturday, Varfolomeev also won the European Championship title in the all-around for the first time. After her exercises with hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon, the eleven-time world champion relegated Nikolowa to second place by 1.4 points in an exciting duel with 120.150 points.
“I already had every title in the all-around except for the European Championships. Now it’s finally here,” said the 19-year-old. This means that Varfolomeev will once again be the top favorite for gold at the home World Championships from August 12th in Frankfurt/Main.
On the final day of the title fights in Bulgaria, Varfolomeev missed another medal in the hoop decision. In the victory of the Russian Sofia Ilteriakowa (29.900 points), her 29.300 points were only enough for fourth place. The woman from Schmiden missed the final with the clubs because of two equipment losses in the qualification. The title went to Nikolova.
