Who will triumph in Baku?

Preview of the 26th European Championships in Trampoline, Double Mini-Trampoline and Tumbling

From Thursday 12 till Sunday 15 April, Europe’s best junior and senior athletes meet in the Azerbaijani capital Baku to compete against themselves and each other for the European titles.

420 gymnasts from 25 federations have registered. Both junior and senior competitions will be held in Individual and Synchronised Trampoline, Double Mini-Trampoline and Tumbling.

Who to watch?

Individual Trampoline: Defending European and reigning Olympic Champion Uladzislau Hancharou and his wife Hanna Hancharova (formerly better known as 2014 European Champion Hanna Harchonak!) will be among the ones to beat in Baku. They will face tough competition from Russia that is sending a star-studded team including Vice-European Champion Dmitriy Ushakov, Mikhail Melnik, Sergey Azarian and defending women’s European Champion Yana Pavlova. Great Britain can count on the experience of Kat Driscoll, who is competing in an impressive 8^th senior Europeans, Luke Strong, Nathan Bailey and 2014 junior European and World Champion Izzy Songhurst. France’s Sébastien Martiny and Allan Morante, fresh off victory at the Dutch Open, aim for the final as does Azerbaijan’s Ilya Grishunin. In the women’s competition, we look for to seeing the experienced Olympians Portugal’s Ana Rente, Ukraine’s Natalia Moskvina and Georgia’s Luba Golovina.

Synchronised Trampoline: World Champions Aleh Rabtsau and Uladzislau Hancharou will look to take the European gold as well, a title Hancharou won in 2016 with Mikalai Kazak. The 2015 World bronze medallists Sébastien Martiny and Allan Morante will be one of the main challengers, together with Russia’s dynamic duo Andrey Yudin and Dmitriy Ushakov, Portugal’s Diogo Abreu and Diogo Ganchinho. Last year’s World Games silver medallist Mykola Prostorov of Ukraine is partnering with Artem Savchenko in Baku. Competition will be tight on the women’s side as well. Defending European Champions Marine Jurbert and Léa Labrousse (FRA) will be present, as will silver medallist Susana Kochesok (RUS) who will partner with Yana Pavlova, and bronze medallists Ana Rente and Beatriz Martins (POR). And there’s the duo Hanna Hancharova - Maria Makharynskaya to take into consideration too!

Double Mini-Trampoline: The ultimate star in DMT is of course Russia’s Mikhail Zalomin. The multiple European and World Champion also won the World Games last year and is looking to defend his title. Few gymnasts can rival Zalomin’s technique and difficult. His biggest rival? His teammate Aleksander Odintsov and Spain’s daredevil Daniel Perez. Sweden’s Lina Sjoeberg won the European title two years ago in Valladolid (ESP). Her insane difficulty has broken many records and she doesn’t plan to stop yet! Her competition will mainly come from Great Britain’s Kirsty Way and Russians Polina Troianova.

Tumbling: Azerbaijan’s high hopes are set on Mikhail Malkin, the 2017 Age Group World Champion. Simply to reach the final will be a challenge in this strong field that also features 2016 junior Champion Rasmus Steffensen and Danish teammate Anders Wesch, Great Britain’s Greg Townley, Elliott Browne, Kallum Mulhall and Kristof Willerton and Russians Aleksandr Lisitsyn, Maksim Shlyakin, Grigory Noskov and Vadim Afanasev. Living legend Anna Korobeynikova, who took her first World title with the Russian team back in 1998, aims to defend her European title in Baku. Also going for the medals are Belgium’s Tachina Peeters, France’s Marie Deloge, British ladies Lucie Colebeck and Rachel Davies and Russia’s Viktoria Danilenko.

Competition format

The 26^th European Championships in Trampoline, Double Mini-Trampoline and Tumbling will be run in the following 4 disciplines, for both juniors and seniors, men and women:

• Individual Trampoline
• Synchronised Trampoline
• Double Mini-Trampoline
• Tumbling

There will also be team events in three disciplines (trampoline individual, tumbling and double mini-trampoline) and in both categories (juniors and seniors) and genders (men and women). A total of 28 gold medals will be distributed: 14 for Junior and 14 for Senior.

The semifinal will be applied for Individual Trampoline seniors and juniors only. The top 24 gymnasts from qualifications advance to semifinals, with a limit of 3 gymnasts per Federation. All gymnasts will start the semifinal with a score of zero.

Participation in the Finals:

• The top 8 gymnasts per discipline and age category, men and women (maximum 2 per NF)
• The top 8 synchro pairs per age category, men and women (maximum 1 per NF)
• The top 5 teams in TRA individual, DMT and TUM per age category, men and women (4 gymnasts per team, 3 best scores will be counted).

All gymnasts, pairs and teams will start Finals with a score of zero.

These Championships will also be the only qualifying moment for the following 2 events:

• 2018 Youth Olympic Games
• 2019 European Games

Apparatus supplier: Eurotramp

Schedule

All times are Azerbaijan local time (GMT + 4)

TRA = individual Trampoline, TRS = synchronised Trampoline, DMT = double Mini-Trampoline, TUM = Tumbling

How to follow?

Thanks to our Global Partner SmartScoring, you will be able to follow the entire competition next to the live scoring on their platform Gymtv.online!  http://gymtv.online/user/playlist/

Via the hashtag #EChTRA2018 you can find all updates on social media.

UEG will publish the results and a report at the end of every competition day on our website.