Petrounias Takes Last Spot in World Rings Final in Rotterdam

By Taki Panos

Two days of nervous refreshing, one happy ending. Lefteris Petrounias has qualified for the still rings final at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam, taking the eighth and last spot once qualifying wrapped up on Sunday, October 18, Gazzetta reported. It is the eighth world final of his career on rings, as both iefimerida and CNN Greece noted, and he got there with a score of 14.033 that he posted on Saturday and then had to protect from the sidelines while the rest of the world took its turn.

For anyone who does not follow gymnastics closely, Petrounias is the reason a lot of people in Greece know what the still rings even are. He won three world titles on the apparatus, in Glasgow in 2015, Montreal in 2017 and Doha in 2018, and added a world silver in Antwerp in 2023, as Gazzetta and NewsIT both listed. He is also the 2016 Olympic champion from Rio. Greek fans call him the Lord of the Rings, and the nickname has aged well. It has been a good week for Greek veterans, too, after Gionis, at 46, reached the European last 16 in table tennis.

Petrounias competed on Saturday, October 17. His routine carried a difficulty score of 5.700 and an execution score of 8.333, iefimerida and CNN Greece reported, for a total of 14.033. Newsbeast described a difficult combination performed with his trademark stability, but said the landing was the one blemish on an otherwise tidy routine, and iefimerida wrote that the landing error cost him a higher score. On rings, where the top marks are separated by hundredths, a shaky landing is never cheap.

Straight after his group, he sat third on the provisional standings, behind Armenia's Artur Avetisyan and Turkey's Mehmet Ayberk Kosak, who both scored 14.233, per Newsbeast. By the time Saturday's sessions were over, he had slipped to sixth, Gazzetta and NewsIT reported, with the rest of the field still to come on Sunday. There was nothing left for Petrounias to do but wait. If you have ever watched a penalty shootout through your fingers, you know the feeling. Now imagine it lasting a full day.

Sunday was the nervous part. Only two gymnasts managed to pass him, iefimerida reported. China's Lan Xingyu jumped straight to the top of the standings, and Belgium's Glen Cuyle scored 14.100 to move into sixth, which pushed Petrounias down to eighth. International Gymnast Magazine credited a stuck dismount for Cuyle's place in the final. Nobody else got past the Greek, and when the last group finished he was still holding the final ticket. Gazzetta called it a thriller with a happy ending, which is about as fair a summary as you will find.

It really was close. Azerbaijan's Nikita Simonov finished ninth on 13.900, just 0.133 behind, and will be the first reserve for the final, according to iefimerida and Gazzetta. American Kameron Nelson is the second reserve on 13.833, per Gazzetta and International Gymnast Magazine. In other words, a cleaner landing on Saturday would have put Petrounias comfortably in the middle of the pack, and a slightly worse one would have left him watching next weekend's final as a spectator. Fine margins, every single time.

The final itself looks loaded. Lan topped qualifying with 14.733, CNN Greece and Gazzetta both reported, on a routine that, according to iefimerida, carried 6.000 in difficulty, an 8.633 execution score and a 0.100 bonus for a stuck landing. International Gymnast Magazine singled out his stuck double-double layout dismount. Behind him came Ilia Zaika on 14.533 and Britain's Courtney Tulloch on 14.500, with Avetisyan and Kosak tied on 14.233, Cuyle on 14.100 and Japan's Shinnosuke Oka on 14.066, per the standings published by Gazzetta and International Gymnast Magazine.

History says a final is where Petrounias tends to do his best work. According to iefimerida's rundown of his world championship record on rings, he finished 13th in London in 2009 and ninth in Antwerp in 2013 before reaching his first final in Nanning in 2014, where he was sixth. Then came the three straight golds, fourth place in Stuttgart in 2019, silver in Antwerp in 2023 and fifth in Jakarta in 2025. Rotterdam makes eight finals in all, and he is now chasing a fifth world medal, as NewsIT and iefimerida both pointed out.

Age is part of the story, and there is no point pretending otherwise. The final comes shortly before his 36th birthday, as Gazzetta noted, on an apparatus that punishes shoulders and elbows like few others in the sport. The good news is that qualifying scores do not carry into a final, so everyone starts again from zero on Saturday. Iefimerida made the obvious but important point that the key for him will be avoiding mistakes and, above all, a stable landing, the one element that cost him valuable tenths in qualifying.

Greek sport has had a busy October on the international stage, from Konstantinos Lampridis winning snatch gold in Durres to Greece's AirBadminton European title in Olympia. Still, few things stop the country quite like a Petrounias final. He has been a fixture at the top of world gymnastics since the middle of the last decade, and for a country of Greece's size, that kind of staying power at a world level is rare. For Greeks abroad, it is also one of the easiest stories to explain to friends who know nothing about gymnastics.

My take: I am not reading too much into the eighth place. The difficulty is there, the strength is there, and the only real problem on Saturday was a landing, which is the most fixable thing in the sport. Lan looks like the clear favourite after that 14.733, and Zaika and Tulloch were both well clear of the rest in qualifying, so a medal will need a near perfect routine. But I have learned not to bet against this man in a final. Eighth on the list, sure. Nobody in that arena will treat him like an eighth seed.

Next up is the still rings final on Saturday, October 24, in Rotterdam, where Petrounias will go for a fifth world medal, per NewsIT and iefimerida. We will be watching every hold, and you can keep an eye on our Greek Sports section for the result and everything else from Greek athletes around the world. Last ticket in, but he is in.

Sources: Gazzetta, iefimerida, CNN Greece, NewsIT, Newsbeast, International Gymnast Magazine.

Image: Flag of Greece, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).