Croatia’s best female gymnast Ana Đerek won the gold medal at the World Cup competition in Osijek after a brilliant floor performance, while the best Croatian male gymnast Tin Srbić finished sixth after falling during his routine, reports HRT on May 27, 2019.
In the final, Đerek achieved a high score of 13,033 for her routine, which was more than enough for first place.
This was Đerek’s third appearance before the Osijek audience where she achieved her best result. Along with her excellent performance on the floor, Ana placed fourth in the final of the balance beam. With this result, Ana surpassed her previous best placement in Osijek - fifth place on the floor in 2015.
To win the medal on the balance beam, the Split gymnast missed by only 0.034 points.
“I went into the finals as the first, so there was a chance to stay in first, but I did not think I was going to succeed. This is my first medal, and I did not think it would be the gold right away. I'm so happy! Of the four exercises, these were four good performances. Really… even the final beam was better than the qualification. I managed to stay focused and repeat it all. I'm thrilled and proud of myself. The audience is incredible here. You only feel something like this once in a lifetime,” said Đerek after the triumph.
With the same number of points in second place in the standings was Ukrainian gymnast Angelina Radivilov who, despite a higher starting point, had a weaker performance than Ana. The bronze medal on the floor was awarded to the Romanian gymnast Alexandra Mihai (12,933).
As far as the balance beam is concerned, the first place was awarded to Ukraine's Angelina Radivilov (13,333), while second and third were achieved by Romanian gymnasts Carmen Ghiciuc (13,100) and Alexandra Mihai (12,667).
The second Croatian representative in Sunday’s final was the current European finalist Tin Srbić who performed his new exercise, which needs to be at its peak in the second part of the season for the World Cup in Stuttgart. This was also Tin’s first appearance after winning the silver at the European Championship in Poland.
Unfortunately, Srbić did not reach his third consecutive gold in Osijek. At this year's edition of the World Cup, Tin came in sixth with a score of 12,933 thanks to a fall at the beginning of the exercise.
“That’s gymnastics. I rarely make mistakes, but it's an indication that everyone makes mistakes, it happens. I love to perform in front of a full auditorium; it's even more exciting to me. The problem is when you're not in shape, then gymnastics cannot really help. I have experienced and realized this now. I've set too high expectations, and went to do the toughest exercise. The fall happened at the beginning of the exercise, making it very difficult to move on. I'm glad I managed to get to the end of the exercise without falling. I'm really happy to have garnered the courage for this tough exercise,” Tin Srbić said.
The best score of the DOBRO World Cup in Osijek this year was achieved by Russian Aleksej Rostov (13.733). The silver medal also went to Russia, to Aleksander Karcevo (13,600), while the bronze medal went to the Cypriot gymnast Georgiou.
Croatia thus participated in six big finals at this year's edition of the World Cup in Osijek, and gold medals were won by Robert Seligman on the pommel horse and Ana Đerek on the floor.
To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page.
