The Ukrainian gymnast will continue to compete for Saarland in the German club championship
Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics Oleg Vernyaev will continue to perform at the club level for Saar in the first Bundesliga 2023.
“The difference with traditional competitions is everything. The fact is that the World or European Championships are the highest official competitions, where you represent not only yourself, but also your country, you compete for Ukraine. But here you just play for the club.”
“There is such a system that sometimes you don’t even need to do the most difficult program: just go out and defeat your opponent, because you know what your opponent doesn’t do there. Not all of them are world or European champions: some do very simple programs, and you can just go out and do a simple program or try to test a new one. These are completely different competitions: these are official for the country, and this is more for experience.”
“In addition, in Germany there is such an interesting system: you don’t know when you will perform. Before the competition, you and your team decide who will compete against whom. There they compete head to head, and whoever gets the highest score wins. But it also happens that they plan on one gymnast, he makes a mistake, and they send me on another. That is, you don’t know when they’ll tell you to perform, so you’re always ready. This is a very cool experience for all subsequent competitions.”
In addition to Vernyaev, four more Ukrainians are playing in the 2023 Bundesliga. Ilya Kovtun represents championship leader Straubenhardt, Igor Radivilov and Radomir Stelmakh represent Cottbus, and Petr Pakhnyuk represents Siegerländer in the second Bundesliga.
Saarland is in third place after three rounds. In the next match, Vernyaev’s team will meet away with Eintracht Frankfurt on October 21.
Vernyaev helped the Ukrainian national team win a team license for the 2024 Olympics. The Ukrainian team will be able to enter five gymnasts at the 2024 Olympics, who will be able to compete on any apparatus at the discretion of the coaching staff.
Source: Sportarena
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