Armenia claimed three medals at the 2026 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Zagreb, with Artur Avetisyan winning historic gold on still rings and Hamlet Manukyan and Mamikon Khachatryan taking silver and bronze on pommel horse.

Avetisyan became the first gymnast representing independent Armenia to win the European title on still rings. He scored 14.400 points in the final and defeated Ilya Zaika on the tiebreak after both gymnasts received identical scores.

Olympic champion Eleftherios Petrounias of Greece took bronze with 14.366 points, while Armenia’s Vahagn Davtyan finished fifth with 14.000. Germany’s Armenian gymnast Artur Sahakyan placed seventh with 13.900.

The title is the biggest achievement of Avetisyan’s senior European career and comes one year after he won bronze on the same apparatus.

Before Avetisyan, the last Armenian gymnast to become European champion on still rings was legendary Albert Azaryan, who won the title in 1955 while representing the Soviet Union. Seventy-one years later, Armenia once again has a European champion on rings.

Armenia also secured two medals in the men’s pommel horse final. Eighteen-year-old Hamlet Manukyan won silver with 15.000 points, while 19-year-old Mamikon Khachatryan took bronze with 14.900.

Gold went to Italy’s Gabriele Targhetta with 15.133 points.

It is the second consecutive year that both Manukyan and Khachatryan have reached the European podium, adding two more medals to another strong European Championship campaign for Armenian gymnastics.