Enzo Fazari

Four matches were contested on the final regular season competition day for the Top 12 series in France, with the men from Monaco getting a huge win over the team from Orleans, while Antibes also continues to shine with a win of its own over La Madeleine.

Competing at home, Monaco managed 30 points to just 18 from Orleans, a massive gap that came thanks to topping three of the four vault, pommels, and high bar contests, while Orleans won just won of each.

Julien Gobaux led the team with excellent scores across the board, including a 14.050 on vault, a 13.550 on pommels, and a 14.050 on high bar, while Kevin Crovetto, an Olympian for Monaco, won his duels on vault and pommels, and Lilian Piotte put up absolutely lovely routines on pommels and high bar, getting two of the highest execution scores in the competition.

Standout British all-arounder James Hall competed as a guest for Orleans, and he did the team a great service, winning his duel on vault with a 14.400 and his duel on pommels with a 14.100, the two highest scores of the day for either team on any event.

The team also got a win on high bar from Edgar Boulet, who defeated Crovetto in the first duel of the high bar match. Both competed well in their battle, but while Crovetto had a slightly stronger routine, Boulet’s difficulty was a point higher, and his score of 13.100 was enough to get a third win for Orleans.

Antibes started out strong, winning three out of four vault matches, and then went on to win two of four pommel horse matches and three of four high bar matches to amass 28 points.

Loris Frasca, the leader for the winning squad, was excellent on vault and high bar, posting a 14.150 and a 13.300, respectively, though he unfortunately had a rough pommels routine, getting just an 11.800 to hand the win over to Tom Aghina of La Madeleine. Hugo Carmona also got two wins, on vault and high bar, with the high bar contest getting super close between himself and Aghina, though he ended up edging out his opponent by a tenth.

The hero of the Antibes team this time around was 18-year-old Enzo Fazari, a first-year senior who got wins on all three events, getting a 13.850 on vault, a 12.900 on pommels with a simple but super clean routine, and a 12.800 on high bar. He separated himself significantly from all three guys he went up against, and he proved to be a lovely gymnast to watch, so hopefully we’ll see him branch out and get some international assignments in the next quad.

For La Madeleine, Abderrazak Nasser – a Moroccan elite who trains in France – was a standout on vault, getting a 14.050 to win the first match of the day for his team, while guest athlete Andrey Likhovitskiy of Belarus was excellent on both pommels and high bar, posting a 13.700 and a 12.700 to easily get the wins on both. Aghina was also noted for surprising to get his pommels win over Frasca, but while he competed well on both vault and high bar, his scores there just weren’t enough to overtake the Antibes men.

The match between Franconville and Vallauris came down to the very final duel for a super dramatic finish, as the teams went back and forth all meet long to come in tied at 22 points apiece going into the very end.

On vault, Ukraine’s Petro Pakhniuk kicked things off for a Franconville win thanks to his 14.650, but Vallauris bounced back in the next round with a 13.750 from Pierre Stephan to win that one. His teammate Florent Maree got a second win for the squad, but then Franconville’s Anthony Pueron had a near-perfect hit to get a 14.200 with just a 4.8 start value, surprising to take the duel win over the typically stronger Léo Saladino, who wasn’t at his best here.

Quentin Begue kept things going for Franconville with the first routine on pommels, getting a 13.650, and Saladino and Aurelien Bouquet both had iffy routines in the next round to get matching scores of 11.650. Pakhniuk was at his best here, going 14.050 to bring in his second win for Franconville, but then the Belgian Maxime Gentges came in as a guest for Vallauris, and got the win there with a 13.100.

The teams came into the final rotation with Franconville at 17 points while Vallauris was at 15, and a beautiful high bar routine from Christopher Pinville brought Franconville to 20 points. However, Taha Serhani of Switzerland came in with a high level of difficulty that was able to outscore Bouquet’s excellent but simple routine, and then Saladino counted a big hit for Vallauris to bring the two teams to a tie going into the final round.

Pakhniuk wasn’t at his best on his high bar routine, and the mistakes had him at just a 12.300, far below what he’s capable of. His opponent, however, came in with a much easier routine and would’ve needed at least an 8.5 E score to match Pakhniuk, though he unfortunately ended up falling, getting a 10.100 to give Pakhniuk – and Franconville – the win, with Franconville coming in at 25 points while Vallauris ended up with 23.

There was also a lot of back-and-forth drama with the match between Noisy Le Grand and Velizy. Velizy had a solid lead coming out of the vault rotation, but Noisy caught up during pommels, winning three of the four duels to tie Velizy going into the final rotation.

The high bar rotation was like a tennis match, with Noisy getting the first win, and Velizy getting the second, and then Noisy getting the third win to lead going into the final round, though Zachari Hrimeche came in clutch to get the final win for Velizy, and the two teams ended up tying at 24 points apiece.

Hrimeche hasn’t done anything on the international level since worlds in 2017, where he finished seventh in the vault final, because he’s been suspended from the national team and didn’t return to INSEP until last year. He’s not quite at the same level right now, and didn’t vault here, but in addition to his high bar win, he also put up a 13.000 on pommels to get the one win for his team there.

On vault, Killian Mermet, Anthony Pivost, and Belgium’s Noah Kuavita all performed very well for Velizy, with Kuavita getting a 14.400 to post the highest score of the rotation, and though the men struggled on pommels, their comeback on high bar was excellent. In addition to Hrimeche’s last-second win, Mermet also got an upset over Leo Valentin, hitting a clean set while Valentin missed.

For Noisy, vault wasn’t a great rotation at all, with lots of mistakes, including a fall from Valentin, though Benjamin Thiriot anchored with a 13.900 to get one vault win for the team. The team made up ground on pommels, with Valentin, Hamza Hossaini (another Moroccan gymnast who trains in France), and Lorenzo Pambianchi all putting up incredibly tidy sets, and then Pambianchi and Alexis Blin had the strongest high bar routines of the competition, though falls from Valentin and Florentin Borello held the team back from getting a win outright.

Full results from the meet are available here.

The men will be back for the first of two semi-final meets on February 29, where parallel bars, rings, and floor will be contested.

Antibes will face Velizy in Semifinal A, and Sotteville les Rouen will face Monaco in Semifinal B, the top two seeded matches of the competition. Also competing will be Franconville against Bourges in Classification Match A, and Oyonnax against Montceau les Mines in Classification Match B.

Article by Lauren Hopkins