The 2026 European Gymnastics Championships are set to take place in Zagreb, Croatia August 19 - 23. The Championships serve as the final qualifier to the 2026 World Gymnastics Championships; thirteen (13) teams and twenty-three (23) will qualify to Rotterdam per the technical regulations.

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Sam Oldham and Kensley Behel

Donnell Whittenburg

Lewis Thomson

Behind the Neutrality

The 2026 Euros serve as the return for Russia to compete as a team, though they will do so under the designation of World Gymnastics 2. While World Gymnastics has released the suspension on Russian and Belarusian athletes, the Croatian federatian and European Gymnastics have opted for the athletes to compete neutrally as that was the initial ruling under which they agreed to host the championships in the first place.

Their determination to uphold the neutral status of the Russian and Belarusian athletes may also be related Ukrainian turned Croatian, Ilia Kovtun. Kovtun won Ukraine's only medal in gymnastics at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and at the 2022 World Gymnastics Championships wore a T-Shirt displaying "Stop War" in the Ukrainian flag colors.

According to quotes to Croatian media, the war was not the only reason Kovtun decided to switch nationalities. Having just been cleared to compete for Croatia in July 2026, this return to competition in his new country is poetic after a chaotic last few years.

The Competitors

Team

The team title is almost certainly going to be a battle between World Gymnastics 2 and Great Britain despite both teams are missing key contributors like Aleksandr Kartsev and Jake Jarman. While the British have about a two-point advantage in d score heading into the competition, World Gymnastics 2 has about a tenth of a point total lead ( using d score + e score + stick bonus + neutral deductions). All that to say, data is projecting the gold medal to be in the low 250s.

All-Around

Great Britain's Joe Fraser comes into the competition with the highest score (84.5) of any of the competing athletes. Only one other athlete in the competition has broken the 84 mark – Arsenii Dukhno (World Gymnastics 2), and while Fraser tends to excel on bar events, Dukhno excels on power events like floor and vault. Fraser previously won the European all-around title in 2022 while Dukhno comes in as the reigning junior world AA champion. Should the two be at their best, it should be a fantastic competition.

Reigning European all-around champion, Adem Asil has been absent much of the 2026 competitive season with two performances in the mid-70s and is not currently considered a front runner for the all-around podium. Three other favorites for the podium are Dukhno's teammate Daniel Marinov who finished seventh at the 2025 World Gymnastics Championships. At the same championships, Switzerland's Noe Seifert took home a historic bronze medal; however, as he has worked to add in more difficulty this year, he has been less consistent in his execution and his ability to reach the 83/84 mark has not to date yet been demonstrated.

The wildcard is Croatia's Ilia Kovtun. This comptition will be his first major competition since the 2024 Olympic Games and while his regional legue scores this year have been comptitive, it would be foolish to ignore the potential pressures of competing in front of his new home crowd in the same competition where Russian athletes are returning as a team (though under the neutral banner of World Gymnastics 2).

Event

All of the 2025 European Champions are returning with the exception of Luke Whitehouse (GBR - FX) and Nils Dunkel (GER - PB).

2025 Winners

Floor: Luke Whitehouse (GBR)

Pommel Horse: Hamlet Manukyan (ARM)

Still Rings: Eleftherios Petrounias (GRE)/Adem Asil (TUR)

Vault: Artur Davtyan (ARM)

Parallel Bars: Nils Dunkel (GER)

High Bar: Robert Tvorogal (LTU)

2026 Frontrunners

FX: Arsenii Dukhno (WG2)/ Artem Dolgopyat (ISR)

PH: Mamikon Khachatryan (ARM)/ Gabriel Targhetta (ITA)

SR: Artur Avetisyan (ARM)/Harry Hepworth (GBR)

VT: Nazar Chepurnyi (UKR)/Artur Davtyan (ARM)

PB: Ilia Kovtun (CRO)/Joe Fraser (GBR)

HB: Joe Fraser (GBR)/Tin Srbic (CRO)

Full Roster Here.

Schedule

Live Scoring: https://results.smartscoring.com/events

Quals Live Stream $$$: https://www.gymtv.online/en/checkout?pa=3332&cta=%2F

Finals Live Stream $$$: https://eurovisionsport.com/en/explore/federations/europeangymnastics

Neutral Deduction Euros Podcast Schedule