Pegan Wins Gold, Petkovsek Silver at World Cup in Gent
In another successful day for Slovenian gymnastics team, Aljaz Pegan won gold on the high bar and Mitja Petkovsek bagged silver on parallel bars at the Gymnastics World Cup meet in Belgium's Ghent on Sunday.
Pegan snapped his streak of bad luck at gymnastics meets in Ghent by beating the competition with 15.5 points.
Petkovsek, who received 15.9 points after a successful exercise, was beaten only by China's Huang Xu.
The pair crowned years of their outstanding performances last year, when they both became world champions in Melbourne in November.
"This was a great surprise for me, as Xu made the finals with the lowest mark. He rarely shows such poetry on parallel bars as he did today," Petkovsek said after the meet, the first in over six months that he did not finish in first place.
However, the 29-year old gymnast is pleased with silver, and happy that he has demonstrated another successful exercise. "It would be good however to have an ace up my sleeve at the next World Cup meet in Russia's Moscow," he added.
Meanwhile, Pegan was not too optimistic about the meet in Ghent, and had even thought about not taking part in the event. However, he was proved wrong. "It was about time," the 31-year old gymnast said after winning his first gold this year.
"It was nice to hear the Slovenian anthem. I am even more happy that all those training sessions were not in vain. I am very pleased with the exercise in Ghent, although there were some mistakes," Pegan admitted.
The third Slovenian gymnasts, Saso Bertoncelj, failed to qualify for the finals in the pommel horse event. He finished 17th with 13.350 points.
More articles from this issue:
Archive
|