BERLIN – Germany’s Marcel Nguyen claimed gold Sunday on the men’s parallel bars at the European gymnastics championships with Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands taking silver and Greece’s Vasileios Tsolakidis bronze.
Nguyen, 23, won his first major individual title and Germany’s second gold of these championships with a winning tally of 15,525 pts, while Zonderland finished with 15,300 pts and Tsolakidis earned third place with 15,075 pts. The new champion was returning from injury which kept him out of the 2010 world championships and picked up the hosts second gold after Philipp Boy won the all-around title on Friday.
The defending champion, France’s Yann Cucherat, failed to reach the final after being eliminated in the qualifying rounds. Great Britain’s world champion Elizabeth Tweddle claimed her fourth European title on the uneven bars on Saturday here at the European gymnastics championships. The 26-year-old, who won gold on the bars at last year’s world championships in Rotterdam, took gold with a winning tally of 15,100 pts to give her a slender lead over Russia’s Tatiana Nabieva who took silver with 15,075 pts.
Germany’s Kim Bui won bronze with a score of 14,675 pts as Tweddle won her fourth European gold medal on the uneven bars here at Berlin’s Max Schmeling Halle. This was Tweddle’s sixth European title to add to the three gold medals she has won at world championships and this was her sixth gold medal in total at a major event on the uneven bars. With the London Olympic Games now just 15 months away, Tweddle is one of Great Britain’s brightest hopes for a home gold medal.
The British star said she had suffered from a bout of nerves while waiting as she was the eighth and last to go through her routine, but said it was a good boost ahead of London 2012. “I am very pleased, to go out after waiting for so long was a hard challenge, I am very pleased to come away with a medal,” said Tweddle. “With the Olympics in my home country, everybody is tipping me to be up there, you can only do what you can.
“I am just happy to have won this championship after the run I had coming here.” Tweddle said the Great Britain squad is in good shape ahead of London with Daniel Purvis, 20, claiming a joint bronze in the all-around on Friday and Scotland’s Daniel Keatings, 21, returning from injury. “Our squad is very strong, we have the belief we can win medals, obviously with Louis (Smith on the pommel horse), Daniel Keatings and myself,” she said.
Tweddle’s cause was helped as Russia’s Aliya Mustafina, who had been one of the uneven bar favourites, pulled out of the finals after injuring her left knee on Friday in the all-around competition.
