From 10 to 14 April 2019 the Polish port city of Szczecin hosted the eighth individual European Championships in artistic gymnastics at Netto Arena. Senior men and women competed for the all-around and apparatus titles. It was the last individual European Championships before the Tokyo Olympics were postponed, and it has become a reference point for the shape of European gymnastics at the height of that cycle.
The week's structure
- Wednesday 10 April: men's qualification. - Thursday 11 April: women's qualification. - Friday 12 April: men's and women's all-around finals. - Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 April: apparatus finals in two sessions.
The compact schedule meant that gymnasts reaching several finals had little time to recover, and depth of preparation showed over the weekend.
De Jesus dos Santos takes the crown
France's Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos won the women's all-around title, a milestone for French women's gymnastics. Her floor work, a combination of power and expressive choreography, was the foundation, but the title was earned by hitting all four apparatus in a final where several rivals made costly errors. Our report from the time is still available as a retrospective.
Russia sets the pace in the men's competition
Russia's Artur Dalaloyan, the reigning world all-around champion, topped men's qualification, and the Russian men showed the depth that would carry them to the Olympic team title in Tokyo. We revisit the qualification day in a separate story.
Why Szczecin 2019 matters now
Szczecin was the last individual European Championships held under normal conditions before the pandemic reshaped the calendar. The 2020 European Championships were postponed and eventually staged in a very different form, so Szczecin is the most reliable snapshot of the European elite before Tokyo.
Watching it back
- The women's all-around rotation, where the lead changed hands as gymnasts moved between apparatus. - Men's pommel horse and high bar finals for the difficulty values of late-cycle routines. - The atmosphere at Netto Arena, which Polish fans filled for the finals weekend.
Related
Our feature on Szczecin's preparations two months before the event shows how the host city got ready.
