Israel's apparatus gymnastics team held an open practice today (Monday), ahead of their departure for the world championships that will open this weekend in Liverpool, England.
The team in blue and white will be large and high-quality, with the men's Olympic champion Artyom Dolgupiat, Andrey Medvedev, Alex Miakinin, Ilya Liubimov, Uri Seidel led by coaches Sergey Weisburg and Andrey Grivanov taking part.
And for the women, the Olympic athlete Lihya Raz will participate with her coach Moran Klefner, and Ofir Netzer.
Lihya Raz, photo: Oren Aharoni
Weisburg told about the preparations: "We finished the European Championships two months ago and immediately tried to change an exercise at Dolgopiat and strengthen it, it was not for long enough, but we will try to do a new and more difficult exercise anyway. In today's difficulty levels, this exercise is among the strongest in the world, but I hope that Artyom will succeed, but first he will enter the final."
On the risk of the new exercise he added: "It's a risk we're taking today, because it's not a criterion, we have to try it today, Medvedev is back and we're going out with five gymnasts, injuries are part of an athlete's life and we really want to and are very careful, but there's nothing we can do, it happens in every team".
The men's team, photo: Oren Aharoni
Miakinin, winner of the bronze medal two years ago at the European Championship in tension, added: "At the moment I'm not so excited, we have a few days to fix the small points, but my main goal is to enter the final and from there we'll try to achieve the best.
We all changed the exercises according to the new constitution and every season the constitution changes and my exercise is relatively new, but I will try to do the best."
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