Sport Darja Varfolomeev (16)
Fourth World Cup gold – the birth of a German sports star
Status: 09:19 a.m. | Reading time: 2 minutes
Sentence almost complete: Darja Varfolomeev could win her fifth title at the World Championships as well as at the German Championships
Source: dpa/Rolf Vennenbernd
After her gold medals in the individual decisions ball and hoop, Darja Varfolomeev also wins with clubs and ribbon at the World Championships. The German gymnast becomes the new dominator of her sport. She is only 16 years old though.
Darja Varfolomeev and her trainer Yuliya Raskina formed hearts with their hands for the enthusiastic audience on the “Kiss and cry” couch and hugged each other happily. With gold in all four individual decisions, the multiple German champion from Schmiden dominates the world championships in rhythmic gymnastics in Valencia and has thus become the favorite for the all-around title this Saturday. On Thursday, the only 16-year-old exceptional gymnast won the finals with the clubs and the ribbon, after having won the decisions with the ball and the hoop the day before.
The result is already historic for the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB). So far, Carmen Rischer was the most successful German gymnast with three gold and three silver medals at world championships in the 1970s. Vorfolomeev has now far surpassed the tally with four World Cup titles, plus World Championship gold with clubs, silver in all-around, ball and team, and bronze with hoop at Sofia 2022. In addition, Margarita Kolosov from Potsdam, who came tenth in the all-around qualification, secured the second place at the Olympic Games next year in Paris for the DTB, after Varfolomeev, who finished second in the all-around at the World Championships last year, had already secured a quota place.
Non-stop: Darja Varfolomeev was the first German gymnast to win four gold medals at a World Cup
Credit: AFP/JOSE JORDAN
Second place in the all-around final
On the second day of competition at the World Championships, Varfolomeev has already exceeded all expectations and could go one better in the final decision. The teenager qualified second for the all-around final with 102,600 points, despite presenting lower difficulties in the prelims than in the individual events. The best was Stiliana Nikolowa (Bulgaria/104,300), who was third at the World Championships, third in the elimination was defending champion Sofia Raffaeli (101,800). Margarita Kolosov finished tenth in the four-way qualifier with ball, clubs, ribbon and hoop and scored 95.950 points.
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In the final individual finals in Valencia, Darja Varfolomeev performed the clearly highest difficulty of all eight starters. First she defended her clubs title from the previous year with 34,350 points. She then won easily with 33,350 points, also with the ribbon.
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Second in the final with clubs was Bulgaria’s Borjana Kalejn with 33.550 points ahead of Ukraine’s Viktorija Onoprijenko with the same number of points. Potsdam’s Kolosov took eighth place with 30,750 points. In the decision with the ribbon, the five-time German champion Varfolomeev relegated her competitors Kalejn (31.850) and Ekaterina Vedeneeva from Slovenia (31.100) to places two and three.
