Bulgaria dominates the European Rhythmic Championships that are taking place in Baku, and this Saturday they have hung the gold medal of sets and the individual in the complete classification by Boryan Kaleyn. The Spanish team finished in sixth position, and in the singles Polina Berezina finished eighth, and Alba Bautista, seventeenth.
Boryana Kaleyn, 22, was the best in the final with a total score of 131,000 points. The Italian Sofia Raffaeli (129,550), world champion in 2022, finished at 1,450; and to 1,500 the also Bulgarian Stiliana Nikolova (129,500), who achieved her second European bronze in the modality with only 17 years. The Bulgarian thus adds her fourth European title and the first in a complete contest. At the European Championships last year, in Tel Aviv (Israel), Kaleyn won individual gold in ribbon and ball and in the team event. She finally took gold in a continental ‘all around’ after the silver achieved in Varna (Bulgaria) in 2021 and in Tel Aviv in 2022. Kaleyn also qualified to play this Sunday in the finals for hoop apparatus, ball and maces.
Polina Berezina took eighth place among the 24 finalists with 121,400 points: 32,300 in hoop, 30,300 in ball, 30,000 in clubs and 28,800 in ribbon. Alba Bautista was seventeenth with 113,350 (27,200, 29,350, 26,550 and 30,250). Berezina, born 25 years ago in Moscow, but living in Spain since she was very young (she belongs to the Torrevieja Rhythmic Gymnastics Club), will play the hoop final this Sunday, which she agreed to after being seventh in the previous one dominated by the Ukrainian Viktoriia Onopriienko.
In the complete contest Spain finished sixth with 63,100 total points, 4,950 behind Bulgaria as a whole, the best with 68,450. After the Bulgarians, the team from Israel (67,300) and Azerbaijan (65,400) finished.). In addition, the gymnasts that Quereda will be in the two finals this Saturday with the fourth note in five rings (34,350) and with the eighth in the mixed of three ribbons and two balls, with 28,750.