Ron Pyatov came within a whisker of a first European senior medal on Saturday, finishing fourth in the men's parallel bars final at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Zagreb after tying the bronze medallist's score but losing out on execution marks.
The Israeli, competing for Maccabi Tel Aviv, had qualified into the eight-man final in eighth place with 13.966 points. In the final itself he raised his game considerably, putting together a routine that earned 14.300 — matching Britain's Joe Fraser mark for mark.
Under gymnastics tiebreak rules, ties are broken by the higher execution score, and Fraser's superior execution mark saw the 2019 world parallel bars champion take bronze while Pyatov was pushed down to fourth, agonisingly close to the podium.
Gold went to the home favourite Illia Kovtun, the Croatia-based world and Olympic silver medallist on the apparatus, with 14.700, while Turkey's Ferhat Arıcan took silver on 14.433.
It capped a big weekend for Israeli gymnastics in Zagreb. A day earlier, Artem Dolgopyat had claimed his third European title on floor exercise, scoring 14.666 to beat the field including Great Britain's Harry Hepworth, who took bronze on 14.300 — the same mark that would decide Saturday's parallel bars podium.
For Pyatov, who has been building toward major finals through the World Cup and Challenge Cup circuit over the past year, a fourth-place finish at a European Championships final marks his best result yet on the senior international stage, even without the medal to show for it.
The Israeli team will hope to build on the display as the Zagreb championships move toward their closing events, with Dolgopyat's floor gold and Pyatov's near-miss both pointing to strength in depth for the national programme.
