Koper, 1 June 2024 – On the first day of the finals in Koper, Lucija Hribar and Luka Bojanc ensured the delight of the Slovenian fans. Lucija won her first gold medal on the parallel bars with an excellent exercise. Luka Bojanc also finished the competition on the podium with an exericse on the rings, which was his first World Cup medal ever. In addition to them, Anže Hribar and Gregor Rakovič also successfully competed in the final.
The men’s finals on Saturday began with performances on the ground floor, where Slovenia was represented by Anže Hribar. The current Olympic floor champion, Israeli Artem Dolgopyat, who received a score of 14.450, came second. Anže stepped onto the ground floor as the fourth. He performed the exercise very well and received a high score of 14.000, placing him in second place. One of the favorites from Ukraine, Illia Kovtun, performed as the penultimate, who performed an excellent composition and received the highest floor score in the final, 14.600. and won a gold medal. Israel’s Artem Dolgopyat won second place and Spain’s Unai Baigorri (14.150) won third place. In the end, Anže Hribar was only 0.150 behind the bronze medal and won an excellent 4th place. “I am very satisfied with the competition. I got a score of 14,000 which was also my goal. I am very happy that I was able to compete in front of the home audience and demonstrate such an exercise,” said Anže after the competition. His coach Franci Rojc was very satisfied with Anže’s performance: “I think we can be very satisfied with his performance, what he showed in the last two competitions. He somehow escalated his grade from one routine to the other. He ended up with a score of 14,000 points, which is the highest score in his very short senior career, so we can be very very pleased. In the end, 4th place, but we are happy.”
The women’s vault final followed. Alexa Moreno from Mexico performed best, winning the gold medal with an average score of 13.600. Croatian representative Tijana Korent took second place with a score of 12.900 and Austrian Leni Bohle took third place (12.775).
This was followed by the finals on pommel horse, where Slovenia was represented by Gregor Rakovič. Gregor introduced himself as the second competitor. He performed a more difficult exercise than in the qualifications, for which he received a score of 13.950. He was very satisfied with yesterday’s exercise: “I can’t describe the feelings. I did 120 percent of what I could do. I may have borrowed 20 percent from my home audience. It was really great to be able to perform and compete at home. Good feeling, atmosphere and people. Everyone who knows you comes to support you and their smiles and cheers. Superb. I did a more difficult exercise and I’m very happy with it. There is no progress in the assessment. I got only 0.05 tenths higher score. I learned it a little worse. But this step forward that I made, adding another element to the exercise, really shows that in a match, even when you haven’t trained, I have these repetitions, this knowledge and a good psychological preparation to be able to show it whenever and wherever must.”
“I am quite satisfied with today’s performance, we decided that she will do a more difficult exercise. Otherwise, we had planned to make it a tenth more difficult, but for safety reasons, he performed the D difficulty rather than the E difficulty when jumping. He got a little carried away during the exercise and lost those 0.3 and 0.4 dimes when he probably shouldn’t have. He did the exercise twice in a row, which is also satisfactory and has very good prospects for the future,” said his coach Aljaž Vogrinec after the competition. The gold medal was again won by Ukrainian Illia Kovtun (14.900) with a 0.750 point lead over the second ranked Kazakh Diyas Toishybek (14.150). The bronze medal was won by Croatian Mateo Zugec (14.100). Ahmas Abu Al Soud, one of the favorites on the pommel horse from Jordan, received the same rating, who made a major mistake during the exercise (falling off the harness) and took 4th place. Gregor Rakovič ended up in 5th place.
This was followed by the final on the parade tool of future Olympian Lucija Hribar, uneven bars. Lucija came second in the finals and performed an excellent exercise, for which she was awarded a high score of 13.300 by the judges and took first place. Immediately after her performance, she said: “I am very satisfied with my exercise on parallel bars, because I succeeded better than in the qualifications, and I also made the jump more beautiful. I am very happy that many spectators came to cheer for me, and I am proud that I was able to perform in front of Slovenia.” Lucija firmly remained in first place until the end of the competition. At the end of the performance of the last competitor who could overtake Lucija, there was excitement in the Bonfika Arena.
This is Lucija Hribar’s first gold medal and her first in front of a home audience. Lucija was overjoyed after the competition: “I still can’t believe that I managed to win a gold medal. I am very happy that I was able to do it in front of my home crowd. I still can’t believe it. This is one great traveler for the future.” But her coach Nataša Retelj did not have to hide her tears of happiness: “Superb. In the end, it turned out to be a gold medal and I am really happy, extremely happy. For the first time, the national anthem also played behind her. When I heard that, I shed quite a few tears.” The silver medal was won by Hungary’s Zoja Szekely with a score of 13.250 and the bronze medal by Ukraine’s Yelyzaveta Hubareva with a score of 13.200.
As the last tool, it was time to perform in the circles where Slovenia had its representative. On Thursday, Luka Bojanc made it to the finals with the third qualifying mark. He made his exercise even more difficult for the final and performed it perfectly. He received a score of 13,300. For Luka then began a tense wait until the last competitor, when it was clear that he had won his first bronze medal from the World Cups. “The feelings are phenomenal. Especially in front of the home crowd, considering that a few days ago my shoulder hurt so bad that I didn’t even know if I could compete or not. Every time I come to the hall, when I hear the Slovenian audience, the hall is full. You forget all the pain, you do what you know. In fact, there is so much audience that in a way we don’t even dare not to rehearse or make any kind of mistake. I would really like to thank all the fans, because the atmosphere in the hall is really incredible,” Luka said after winning his first medal. Even his coach Sebastjan Piletič could not not hide his joy: “I am very satisfied. The fact that he made it to the finals despite all these problems he had with his shoulder, that he managed to pull himself together and ignore the pain to make it to the finals is a great achievement for me. This dot on the i with the medal is really great. I’m very happy for him and for all of us to be a part of it.” Ukraine’s Igor Radivilov (13.700) won the gold medal by 0.350 over his countryman Illia Kovtun (13.350).
