Ilya Kovtun finished the competition in fourth place.
Ukrainian gymnasts Ilya Kovtun and Oleg Vernyaev performed in the final of the individual all-around at the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris, where Kovtun took fourth place, and Vernyaev became eighth.
After three of the six apparatuses (horse pommel horse, rings and vault), both of our athletes were in the top 5: Vernyaev took second place (42.766 points), Kovtun was fourth (42.232 points).
In the second half of the personal all-around program, Ukrainians competed on parallel bars, horizontal bar, and floor exercises.
Unfortunately, the Ukrainians failed to reach the medals, although they were very close. Kovtun (86.165 points) came in fourth, and Verniaiev (84.399 points) finished the competition in eighth position.
“Gold” in the individual all-around in artistic gymnastics was won by the Japanese Oka Shinnosuke (86.832 points), “silver” and “bronze” were won by the Chinese Zhang Boheng (86.599 points) and Xiao Ruoteng (86.364 points), respectively.
Verniaev, 30, is the 2016 Rio Olympic champion in the parallel bars and a silver medalist in the all-around. In October 2020, he was suspended from competition, and in 2021, he was disqualified for four years due to the banned drug meldonium found in his body. Because of this, he was forced to miss the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which took place in the summer of 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. In March 2023, Oleg had his disqualification for doping reduced by half, which was supposed to last until November 2024, therefore he was given the opportunity to compete at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
For 20-year-old Kovtun, this is the second Olympics in his career. At his debut Games in Tokyo, he took 11th place in the individual all-around and became seventh on the team.
Ukraine is represented at the XXXIII Summer Olympics by 140 athletes who compete in 23 sports. The Games in Paris will last until August 11.
So far, Ukraine has only one award in its collection at the 2024 Olympics – “bronze”, which was won in the individual sabre by Olga Kharlan.