Gymnastics: rhythmic Europeans, Raffaeli at the foot of the podium

Sofia Raffaeli closes the European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships taking place in Tel Aviv in fourth place.

The 18-year-old from Marche stops at the foot of the continental All Around podium, improving her performance at last year's Varna European Championship - her first competition from her senior - in which she finished eighth.

The world bronze at the Kitakyushu 2021 circle led a competition with some small imperfections to the clubs and the ribbon, totaling 131,250.

    The blue of the Fiamme Oro is back from a season of great successes.

After the historic bronze at the ribbon at the Japanese World Championship last year, a haul of medals collected during the World Cup 2022 (4 golds and 1 silver at the Pesaro World Cup in early June, Raffaeli closes the Israeli general competition with a little

    Now it's back to the preparation of tomorrow's specialty finals that will see her protagonist in the circle, ball and clubs.

    "Unfortunately it did not go as I hoped - Sofia Raffaeli told Rai microphones - But there are still three finals to be played so I won't be discouraged. I'll be back to train and prepare my exercises for tomorrow".

The new European queen is the hostess, the Israeli Daria Atamanov, gold with 136,900 points, ahead of the Bulgarian Boryana Kaleyn, and the other Bulgarian in the race, the seventeen-year-old Stiliana Nikolova, bronze with 131,650.