Azerbaijan takes flag of European Gymnastics Union

Although the development of jumping on trampoline began in Azerbaijan only at the end of 2013, the country already successfully organized the World Cup in this kind of gymnastics in Baku on March 5-6th. The 25th European Championships in Trampoline/Double Trampoline/Tumbling, which finished in the Spanish city of Valladoid on April 3rd, brought its surprises for the Azerbaijani athletes.

Azerbaijan was represented by Ilya Grishunin, Oleg Piuno, Ruslan Agamirov, Dmitry Fedorov and Sabina Zaitseva in the competitions in trampoline, by Mikhail Malkin in tumbling and Dmitry Fedorov in double mini trampoline. According to the Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation, the debut in the competition in double mini trampoline brought bronze to Azerbaijan. Dmitry Fedorov, receiving 74.100 points from the judges, won third place. First and second places were shared between the Russian athletes.

As a result of the qualifying rounds, the representatives of Azerbaijan reached the trampoline finals for the first time in a row, with the best eight gymnasts from Europe both in the individual competitions for men and synchronous competitions. As a result, Oleg Piunov finished fifth in the individual competition, showing his best score (57.525). In the synchronous competitions the couple of Oleg Piunov and Ilya Grishunin took 7th place.

For the first time Mikhail Malkin got to the finals of the European Champioships in Tumbling, by taking eighth place among the finalists.

At the closing ceremony the flag of the European Union of Gymnastics (UEG) was given to Azerbaijan, as the next 26th European Championships in Trampoline will be held in Baku in 2018. The flag was received by the Secretary General of the Azerbaijani Gymnastics Federation, Farid Gaibov, who is the president of the Board of Appeal of the current championship within his mandate as the vice-president of the UEG.