The German gymnasts missed a medal in the team competition at the European Championships in Leipzig.
The selection of the German Gymnastics Association (DTB) around veteran and Rio hero Andreas Toba came fourth one day after the surprising silver medal of German women. Great Britain became European champion in front of Switzerland and Italy.
Toba, Nils Dunkel, Timo Eder, Milan Hosseini and Dario Sissakis showed a strong performance on Tuesday evening in a moderately visited Leipzig hall and achieved a total number of 242.595 – in the end only 0.231 points were missing.
Toba in particular is the focus of the DTB team. The veteran, who was in the hearts of sports fans at the Rio Olympic Games, ended his career after the title fights in Leipzig at the age of 34. And on Saturday the “Hero de Janeiro” is allowed again: Toba qualified as the sixth for the individual final at the bar.
“After my stretching exercise, I had such a good feeling than ever in my career. I felt an excited gratitude. It is a shame that we just missed the team medal. But hardly anyone believed us,” said Toba.
“Of course it’s a very special EM”
On Monday, the German art tuners made a dream start to the home European Championship. Led by Hope Welfare Helen Kevric (17), the replacement weakened DTB selection in the team only had to give up the new European champion from Italy.
It was the conciliatory start in a difficult European Championship. The DTB has been struggling with a severe crisis since the turn of the year because former and active gymnasts had denounced “physical and mental abuse” at the federal base points in Stuttgart and Mannheim.
“Of course it is a very special EM from many ways,” said DTB sports director Thomas Gutekunst in the “SID” conversation.