Great Britain’s men produced a superb performance to successfully defend their team gold at the European Gymnastics Championships in Zagreb for the first time.
Courtney Tulloch, Joe Fraser, Harry Hepworth, Jonas Rushworth and Sol Scott took gold with a score of 246.728 points after a tense battle with World Gymnastics Group 2 (WG2/Russia) went down to the final routine.
“This means everything, it’s about consistency in team competitions, fighting through routines, pushing till the end and that’s exactly what we did,” said Fraser, who won gold in the high bar and bronze in the parallel bars on Saturday.
“I’m unbelievably proud of each and every member of this team.”
Britain, gold medallists a year ago in Leipzig, finished third in the qualifiers after making several mistakes, but made a strong start to the final on the pommel, rings and vault, and held the lead at the halfway stage.
However, mistakes on the parallel bars and high bar meant there was less than a mark separating Britain and WG2 heading into the final rotation.
It all came down to Hepworth, who followed up his individual floor bronze medal performance on Friday with another big score on the floor to secure gold.
“It got close towards the end but we held our nerve and were absolutely delighted,” said Fraser.
“The team competition is the big one and we’ve won it again, incredible.”
Qualifying for the men’s team final meant Britain had already secured a place at the World Gymnastics Championships in October in Rotterdam, which will serve as the first Olympic qualifying event for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
Earlier this week, Britain retained team gold at the junior European Championships.
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