Lefteris Petrounias, with a score of 14,966, won the gold medal in the rings at the World Cup in Cottbus. Petrounias executed his demanding routine flawlessly and left no room for his opponents to question his superiority on the rings. The Greek Olympian started 2023 in ideal fashion, adding yet another gold medal to his collection. He qualified for the final with 14,733 points, which was also the best performance, undercutting Iran’s Mahdi Ahmad Kohani (14,766 b) and Armenia’s Artur Avetisian (14,533 b), among others.
Thanks to this success, which gives him 30 points in the annual world ranking of the rings, Petrounias has now effectively secured the right to participate in the pre-Olympic World Championships in Antwerp (30 September – 8 October), where he will have his first chance to qualify for the Olympic Games “Paris 2024” if he wins the gold medal in his favourite apparatus.
The President of the Hellenic Gymnastics Federation Athanasios Stathopoulos, the Second Vice President of the Federation and President of the Technical Committee of Gymnastics Abraham Sapranidis and the Board of Directors of the H.G.O. extended their warm congratulations to Lefteris Petrounias and his coach Dimitris Rafti.
The Greek delegation returns to Athens on Monday from Berlin.
The rankings:
1. Petrounias (Greece) – 14,966
2. Cohani (Iran) – 14,766
3. Abetisian (Armenia) – 14,533
4. Davitian (Armenia) – 14,500
5. Asil (Turkey) – 14,466
6. Hock (Austria) – 14,433
7. Zahran (Egypt) – 14,166
8. Cholak (Turkey) – 13,466
