Daria Atamanov, a 16-year-old Israeli gymnast, has taken home the gold medal at the European Championship in Rhythmic Gymnastics in Tel Aviv.
This marks Israel’s second gold in the category after Linoy Ashram won at the championships held in Kyiv in 2020.
Reacting to her win, Atamanov said excitedly: “I’m in a bit of shock. It’s exciting, it’s fun.”
She added when asked about reaching the podium: "You don’t think about it during the competition. You just think about each exercise individually, and then when you finish everything you think about it.”
She does it!
— European Gymnastics (@UEGymnastics) June 18, 2022
Daria Atamanov is the 2022 European all-around Champion!#ECtlv2022 pic.twitter.com/WUD3M1pH4W
Atmanov received a score of 34.300 for the bat exercise, and later received 33.050 in the ribbon exercise. She scored 35.100 in the hoop exercise, which was her highest result in the final, and in the last ball drill, she secured the gold with a score 34.450.
Her coach, Ayelet Sussman, who also coached Linoy Ashram to her 2020 win, said: “We are very happy about this achievement but we will do everything step by step. Daria is very agile, her performance is of high quality, she is beautiful.”
Linoy Ashram is also part of Atmanov’s coaching team. She said: “I'm excited for Daria. She has shown everyone her abilities."
The 2022 Group all-around Champions are... Israel! 🇮🇱🤩🏆
— European Gymnastics (@UEGymnastics) June 18, 2022
Congratulations! 💙#ECtlv2022 #rhythmic #gymnastics pic.twitter.com/SrPA5siKMt
In the group competition, Rumi Paritzky, Shani Baknov, Ofir Shaham, Diana Svertsov, Amit Hedvat and Hadar Friedman achieved a total score of 69.950, taking home the gold for Israel as well.
They came marginally ahead of Italy (69.650 points), who won silver, and Azerbaijan (65,400 points), who won bronze.
