Another gold medal and another impressive record were claimed in Leipzig by Lefteris Petrounias, who was crowned European Champion on the rings for the eighth time in his career, becoming the only specialist in the entire history of the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships to have won ten medals in the same apparatus!

At the first major event of the 2025–2028 Olympic cycle, and with a new routine adapted to the updated Code of Points, the “Lord of the Rings” proved that the top still belongs to him:
Competing third among the eight finalists, he scored 14.400 points (difficulty: 5.700, execution: 8.700) and took the victory, despite a step on his dismount that prevented him from achieving an even higher score.

Sharing the gold medal with Petrounias was Adem Asil, a Turkish gymnast of Egyptian origin, who tied for first place with an identical score of 14.400, with the same execution and difficulty scores.
The bronze medal was claimed by Armenia’s Artur Avetisyan, who scored 14.366, in what was the most tightly contested final, with just 0.067 points separating 1st and 6th place.

The Greek super-champion, who had also topped the qualification round on Tuesday (May 27) with 14.700 points, now holds eight European titles, following previous victories in Montpellier 2015, Bern 2016, Cluj 2017, Glasgow 2018, Basel 2021, Munich 2022, and Rimini 2024. His collection also includes two bronze medals (Berlin 2011, Antalya 2023).

Thanks to this latest achievement, Petrounias becomes the only specialist with eight gold medals, and the first athlete in the 70-year history of the event (since 1955) to reach double-digit medals in the same apparatus!
With his tenth European medal on the rings, he surpasses Hungary’s Krisztián Berki, who had nine medals on the pommel horse from 2004 to 2017 (6 gold – 2 silver – 1 bronze), and Slovenia’s Mitja Petkovšek, who had nine on the parallel bars from 1998 to 2012 (4–3–2). Close behind on the list is another Greek champion, Vlasis Maras, with eight medals on the horizontal bar between 2002 and 2015 (5–1–2).

Additionally, the 34-year-old “Lord of the Rings” now holds thirteen gold medals across major competitions, including three World Championships (2015, 2017, 2018), the 2015 European Games, and of course, the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.