The comeback kid
Daniel Keatings shakes off two years of injury woes to win pommel-horse gold, writes Kate Barber
DANIEL Keatings reclaimed his European pommel horse title at the European Championships in Moscow yesterday. The Scot, who won the European crown three years ago in Birmingham, proved his comeback from two injury- plagued years was complete when he saw off the challenge of Olympic champion Krisztian Berki of Hungary with a routine scoring 15.600.
Berki finished with silver after scoring 15.533, with Britain’s Max Whitlock repeating his achievement of London 2012 by taking bronze. That brought Whitlock’s haul at the event to three after earlier becoming Great Britain’s first male European floor champion, sharing gold with Israel’s Alexander Shatilov, and winning silver in Friday’s all-around event.
Whitlock’s pommel routine scored a fine 15.500, higher than his qualification. Berki followed him and produced a typically accurate routine, t he same difficulty as Whitlock with just slightly better execution.
But Keatings’s superb routine was executed to near-perfection, and he landed his very difficult dismount with a giant fist-pump and shout of “yes” to the crowd.
For Keatings, the result is the culmination of a remarkable comeback. The 23-year-old missed out on selection for London 2012 after he lost the race to regain his fitness after serious injuries.
Days after he won European pommel- horse gold in 2010, he found he had damaged his anterior cruciate ligament, and his return in late 2011 was cut short by an ankle ligament injury.
The Corby- born g ymmast was understandably thrilled to have made his mark in a major competition after such a battle back to fitness.
“It felt like I had something to prove after missing out on the Olympic team, and I’ve been working really hard,” he said.
“I came here, had a bit of a shaky qualification and just scraped i nto the f i nal after making a small mistake. To go clean in the final and to beat Berki, the Olympic champion, is just everything.
“I knew that I had done the best routine that I could have done and I knew I would have a shout because I have a high start score. This is my first Europeans in two years and the first chance
Daniel Keatings was thrilled to make his mark again in such a big contest I’ve had to defend my title and I’ve done it.
“This gives me so much confidence. It says to everyone that I’m back, that I haven’t just sat down and given up. I’ve pushed even stronger and harder to get back to where I was and hopefully I’ll keep on improving.
“Towards t he end of t he year I will push the all- round, ready maybe for the worlds, but definitely for the Commonwealth Games.”
In t he f l oor competition, Whitlock, who qualified in first place, shared gold with Shatilov after they both scored 15.333 – Whitlock’s higher difficulty negated by the Israeli’s better execution score. Another Brit, Sam Oldham, finished in fifth with a score of 14.400, well down on his result in qualification.
In the women’s bars final, Britain’s Becky Downie and Ruby Harrold both fell during their routines to finish in seventh and eighth place.
The championships end today with Harrold in the beam final and Oldham and Ashley Watson on high bar.