And you, brus: the crowning achievement left Marinova with a bronze in the all-around

The 2026 European Gymnastics Championships in Zagreb, Croatia, began for the Russian national team with two medals in the individual all-around. Daniel Marinov and Arseniy Dukhno predictably fought for gold, but in the end they never reached it. Dukhno beat Ilya Kovtun, who now represents Croatia, by 0.01 points. Marinov also said that he was ashamed to hold a bronze medal in his hands. In addition, the titled gymnast will not have the opportunity to recoup on individual projectiles.

The discouraging bronze

Dukhno scored a total of 82,832 points for his performance on six shells. He showed the best result in freestyle (14,833), the worst on uneven bars (12,733), where he made a mistake that cost him almost 1.5 points. The fall on the uneven bars was fatal — Ilya Kovtun, who later represented Croatia, the vice-champion of the 2024 Games, beat Dukhno, with a margin of only 0.001 points. The 23-year-old gymnast, who became the winner, represented Ukraine until 2025, but later changed his sports citizenship.

Despite the unfortunate loss of gold, Arseny's result can still be considered a success. He only celebrated his coming of age on August 5, which is his debut at the adult level in Zagreb. Earlier, our gymnast won among juniors — he won gold in the individual all-around at the 2025 World Cup. Now he has confirmed his ambitions in the new conditions. However, it's not worth being surprised by the results. In July of this year, the athlete became the absolute champion of Russia at the adult level, scoring 84.065 points, and would have surpassed this result by a third if not for an annoying fall. The family helps progress: Arseny's father, Andrey Dukhno, is an honored gymnastics coach of the Russian Federation, who works with the national team.

21-year-old Marinov, who was named one of the main contenders for gold before the start of the tournament, scored 81,899 points. He also made a mistake on the uneven bars (13.533) and received an unexpectedly low score on the horse (12.900). They tried to protest it, but to no avail. The resulting bronze did not please Daniel much.

A year ago, Marinov, as the leader of the national team, went to his first major international tournament, the World Cup in Jakarta. The debut among the strongest gymnasts of the planet turned out to be worthy. Daniel made it to the final of the individual all-around without any problems and with the fourth result, where he took seventh place. Only Noah Seifert from Switzerland was higher among the Europeans, who became the third.

In addition, Marinov qualified for the finals in Jakarta in half of the rounds: on the uneven bars, crossbar and vault. As a result, the Russian did not remain without a medal — his favorite uneven bars brought bronze. Experts said that the judges had just met Daniel, so they might have underestimated his performance a little, but now they have found out, and next season everything will be even better.

But the burden of leadership has put pressure on Daniel. Mistakes began to appear more often in his speeches and the former lightness began to disappear. Plus, there was a powerful competitor in the national team in the person of Dukhno, who beat Marinov first in the Czech Republic, and now in the European Championship.

— In general, our team performed well, a lot of good grades were taken into account, — Marinov shared in his Telegram channel. — If we talk about my personal performance in the all-around, then this is, to put it mildly, a failure: I stepped on the freestyle, made a bad horse, something was not counted for me there. Only I did the rings well, I jumped normally, but on the uneven bars, the crown projectile, where I have to give the team a score and a half, in the end it turned out to be a strange performance, in the end my hands got tangled, this had never happened before. I can't explain it.

After two shifts, Daniel was in second place after Dukhno, but the main competitors were ahead in the third stream. Marinov did not see himself among the medalists and did not want to sit on the chairs on the podium, where the current top 3 of the all-around are located, waiting for the end of the performances of others. He thought that he would be knocked out of the top three. However, the rivals also turned out to be not sinless. As a result, as Daniel stated, he was lucky to take the bronze.

"My results?" They don't exist, in fact," the bronze medalist said on Match TV. — Okay, Arseny is still more or less fine. But if we talk about ourselves, then it's just goodbye. I'm ashamed to hold this medal in my hands. In fact, these points are unworthy of third place.

A positive projectile: what to expect from the Russian men's national gymnastics team at the World Cup

Marinov has gained form, and the 18-year-old Dukhno is ready to compete for gold already on his adult debut.

Without separate shells

The individual all-around final was combined with the qualification for the individual rounds finals. Marinov did not enter any of them. Although he was in the top 8 in two rounds: seventh place in the vault and floor exercises. However, in gymnastics, there is a rule that there can be no more than two athletes from one country in the finals at the World and European Championships. Daniel was bypassed by his compatriots on these shells. Marinov scored 12th on the rings, 19th on the crossbar, 28th on his favorite uneven bars, and Konya finished only in 53rd place.

Our gymnasts made it to five of the six individual finals. Floor exercises: Arseniy Dukhno (1st place in qualifying) and Mukhammadjon Yakubov (4th); horse: Arseniy Dukhno (8th); rings: Ilya Zaika (1st); vault: Arseniy Dukhno (4th) and Alexey Usachev (6th); crossbar: Savely Sedin (1st). The only projectile we didn't get into the top 8 on was the uneven bars. Although everyone there predicted a light gold Marinova.

At the same time, the European Championship does not end there for Daniel. Now he has time to prepare for the team all-around, which is considered the main sport of the tournament. In qualifying, the Russian national team showed the best result, scoring 250,622 points. Competitors lagged far behind: Switzerland — 243,830 points, Great Britain — 243,561.

Also on Thursday, August 20, the medals in Zagreb were awarded to juniors. The Russian national team took the second place in the team competition. Dmitry Sukhodolsky, Daniil Smirnov, Ilya Musin, Alexander Vasiliev and Radmir Musaev scored 237.360 points, losing 0.199 points to the British in the fight for the first place. The Italians won the bronze medal with a score of 234.592 points.