Artem Dolgopyat is a European champion again. The Tokyo Olympic gold medallist won the men's floor exercise final at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Zagreb on Friday, scoring 14.466 to take the title for the third time in his career.
It completes a run that stretches back six years: Dolgopyat first won European floor gold in 2020 in Mersin, defended it in 2022 in Munich, and has now added a third in Croatia — a level of consistency almost no one else in his event has matched over that stretch.
Silver went to Arsenii Dukhno, competing as a neutral gymnast, with 14.333, while Britain's Harry Hepworth took bronze on 14.300. Dolgopyat had gone into the final as the form pick, having topped his qualifying subdivision with 14.766 to sit second overall heading into Friday's showdown.
The gold is his eighth European Championships medal in total — three gold, four silver and a bronze — a haul built entirely on floor exercise and vault since his senior debut for Israel, and one that puts him among the most decorated gymnasts the continent has produced this decade.
It sits alongside a resume that already includes Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2021, Olympic silver in Paris last year, and a world title won in Antwerp in 2023, with two further world silvers from 2017 and 2019. At 29, and with a Los Angeles Olympic cycle now underway, Friday's win is a reminder he remains the man to beat on the apparatus.
The result carries extra weight for Israeli gymnastics beyond Dolgopyat's own medal count. Israel's men finished 10th in the team qualification round in Zagreb with a combined 238.659 points, enough to book the squad's place at the World Championships in October — a significant marker for a program built around a handful of senior gymnasts.
Dolgopyat was not the only Israeli to reach an individual final in Zagreb. Ron Piatov also advanced, qualifying eighth for the parallel bars final with a score of 13.966, giving Israel two apparatus finalists at a single European Championships.
Dolgopyat, born in Dnipro, Ukraine, moved to Israel with his family at 12 and settled in Rishon LeZion, where he still trains and competes for Maccabi Tel Aviv. Fourteen years on from that move, Zagreb was simply the latest stop on a career that has repeatedly delivered on the biggest stages — and shows no sign of slowing down.
