Gymnastics: Brazilian Arthur Nory Becomes World Cup Horizontal Bar Champion

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazilian athlete Arthur Nory won the last round of the World Cup in Stuttgart, Germany, and conquered the gold medal in the horizontal bar event, the Brazilian team’s only medal in the championship.

Nory made it to the World Championship as a candidate to win a medal, but the gold is a surprise. At the Pan American Games in Lima, the Brazilian had already lagged behind Chico Barretto, who was the main favorite at the World Championship.

However, Nory outdid himself on Sunday and triumphed. After scoring 14,600 in the qualifiers, the Brazilian improved in execution and rose to 14,900. The fifth to perform, Nory had to put his opponents out and succeeded.

Daiki Hashimoto of Japan failed several times and Tyson Bull of Australia fell, keeping the Brazilian in the first place.

“It was incredible, I don’t know what to say, I’m really speechless. I just have to thank my coach, who represents the whole team. It’s been a year of working hard to qualify for Brazil. I’m speechless,” Nory told SporTV. “I was fourth in the world in 2015 and got stuck. I started working hard, aiming at the Rio Olympic Games. This is an long term work”.

“I’ve been training this harder series all week because I wanted to win, I wanted to move up. We were watching the scores, I looked at Cris (coach) and he said I would decide. Then I chose the series. When I realized that I was already on the podium, I was very happy. And then it was happiness after happiness”, he concluded.

It’s Nory’s first World Championship medal. He had been bronze at the 2016 Olympics, on the floor exercises. He also had a gold medal (for teams) and three silver medals (one for teams, another for the general individual and another for the horizontal bar) in the Pan American Games.

It is Brazil’s fifth gold medal in World Championships history. Before him, Daiane dos Santos (floor in 2003), Diego Hypolito ( floor in 2005 and in 2007) and Arthur Zanetti (rings in 2013) had already made it to the top of the podium. The country still has five silver and four bronze medals in its history.

Source: ESPN