The 30-year-old gymnast from Škofja Loka was awarded the score of 14.966 for his exercise, beating the Ukrainian-born Oleg Stepko, who currently competes for Azerbaijan (14.600), and Brinn Bevan from United Kingdom. With 14.200, the latter ended fairly far behind the best two. Other competitors in the finals included David Belyavskiy (Russia), Oleg Vernyayev (Ukraine) and Slavomir Michanak (Slovakia).

Arms and legs shaking
“I knew I had a medal. The competition was hard. When you’re fifth in line to perform and competitors before you make mistakes, it isn’t easy. Your arms and legs shake, anyone who’s experienced this knows what I’m talking about. You know that you just need to do the exercise, but sometimes this is the same as if someone hung 50 kilos on your legs. It’s hard to focus. That’s often more difficult than when you know that the exercise must be perfect. Really, it’s not easy. First you need to go through the complicated first part, and even if that may look easy, it’s when you know you need to finish the exercise that makes everything even harder. It’s phenomenal to hear the national anthem. It was then that I felt relief, with many emotions present, especially since this had been a poor season,” explained Bertoncelj.

T. J., A. V., MMC; translated by K. Z.