The 28th European Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Championships were held in Lausanne, Switzerland, from 8 to 11 May 2008. Lausanne is home to the International Olympic Committee, which made it a fitting host in an Olympic year.
Team titles
Russia won the senior team competition. Great Britain won the junior team event, an early sign of the British programme that peaked in the following decade.
Apparatus champions
– Floor: Anton Golotsutskov (Russia) – Pommel horse: Krisztián Berki (Hungary) – Rings: Yuri van Gelder (Netherlands) – Vault: Leszek Blanik (Poland) – Parallel bars: Mitja Petkovšek (Slovenia) – Horizontal bar: Fabian Hambüchen (Germany)
Leszek Blanik went on to win the Olympic vault title in Beijing three months later.
What Lausanne shows
Six different nations won the six apparatus titles. That spread is typical of European men’s gymnastics, where specialists from smaller federations can beat the larger teams on their best event.
Related
See the 2008 women’s Europeans in Clermont-Ferrand and the 2012 men’s Europeans in Montpellier.
