Denis Ablyazin

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Mikhailovich and the family name is Ablyazin.

{{Infobox gymnast | name = Denis Ablyazin | image = 2015 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships - Vault - Medalists 07.jpg | image_size = | caption = Ablyazin at the 2015 European Championships | fullname = Denis Mikhailovich Ablyazin | altname = | nickname = | country = Russia | formercountry = | birth_date = (1992-08-03) August 3, 1992 | birth_place = Penza, Russia | hometown = | residence = | death_date = | death_place = | height = 1.60 m As a child, he practiced ice hockey with the goal of becoming a hockey player. He also tried cycling and playing football.

In September 2016, Ablyazin married Ksenia Semyonova, a Russian former gymnast who won two world titles. On January 21, 2017, their son, Yaroslav Ablyazin, was born. Denis and Ksenia separated in 2018.

Career

After trying multiple sports as a child, Ablyazin finally chose artistic gymnastics, the sport he excelled in the most. The sport truly appealed to him after he brought home a gold medal from a youth version of the sports festival, Spartakiad, hosted by his primary school in Chelyabinsk, Russia.

2011

In March, Ablyazin competed at Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Cottbus, Germany. In the event finals he placed fourth on floor with a score of 14.925 and third on vault with a score of 16.050. In April, he competed at the European Championships in Berlin, Germany, where he finished sixth in the floor exercise final, scoring 15.250.

In October, Ablyazin competed at the World Championships in Tokyo, Japan. He contributed scores of a 15.033 on floor, 15.000 on rings and 16.266 on vault toward the Russian team's fourth-place finish. Individually, he placed fifth in the vault final with a score of 16.174, after qualifying in ninth place and being brought in as a reserve when Marian Dragulescu of Romania withdrew from the competition due to injury.

2012

In May, Ablyazin was selected, alongside Emin Garibov, David Belyavskiy, Anton Golotsutskov and Aleksandr Balandin to represent Russia at the 2012 European Championships in Montpellier, France. He contributed scores of a 15.266 on floor, 15.241 on rings and 16.066 on vault toward Russia's second-place finish. He won two bronze medals in the rings and vault finals, scoring a 15.433 on rings and 16.062 on vault.

2012 London Olympics

Ablyazin competed for the national team at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the men's artistic team all-around. He was the only Russian male artistic gymnast to win two medals, a bronze on floor and a silver on vault behind Yang Hak-Seon of South Korea, at the 2012 Summer Olympics. On the floor, his score tied him for the second-highest score of the night with Kohei Uchimura of Japan and only Zou Kai of China had surpassed him. However, after applying tie breaking rules in gymnastics for the Olympics, Uchimura ended up with the silver and relegated Ablyazin to the bronze. With a D-score of 7.1 on floor, he also executed the most difficult routine during the event final with an extra pass and barely finished his routine in time, right at the sound of the final warning bell indicating his time was over.

2013

In March, Ablyazin competed at the World Cup, which was held in France, where he won gold on rings and placed second on floor. In April, he won the gold medal in the vault final at the 2013 European Championships in Moscow, Russia, scoring 15.408.

In July, Ablyazin, alongside the Russian team (Nikolai Kuksenkov, Emin Garibov, David Belyavskiy and Nikita Ignatyev) competed at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia, where they won the gold medal, ahead of Ukraine and Japan. In the event finals, he placed second both on rings and vault.

In September, Ablyazin competed at the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, but failed to qualify in any event finals. There was no team event in 2013 as is customary at the worlds held immediately following an Olympic year.

2014

At the start of the season, Ablyazin competed at the World Cup in Cottbus, Germany and placed first in the rings and floor finals. In May, he and his teammates (Nikolai Kuksenkov, Aleksandr Balandin, Nikita Ignatyev, David Belyavskiy), competed at the 2014 European Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria. Ablyazin contributed scores of 15.833 on floor, 15.500 on rings, 15.366 on vault toward Russia's first-place finish with a total score of 267.959, ahead of Great Britain. Individually, Ablyazin placed first in all events he qualified, winning the gold medal on floor with a score of 15.700, on rings, scoring 15.800 (tied with teammate Aleksandr Balandin) and on vault with a total score of 15.150.

Ablyazin won a total of four gold medals making him the most successful gymnast in the entire 2014 European Championships. He was the first gymnast to win four gold medals in a single European Championships since Marian Dragulescu in 2004.

In October, Ablyazin competed at the 2014 World Championships in Nanning, China and helped the Russian team to a fifth-place finish. In the apparatus finals, Ablyazin had qualified for three events. Ablyazin even surprised himself to finish ahead of defending champion Kenzō Shirai of Japan and win his first gold medal on floor, scoring 15.750, with just 0.017 difference in their scores, after Shirai stepped out-of-bounds in his third pass and incurred a 0.1 point penalty. Ablyazin's routine in that floor final had the second-highest difficulty score of 7.1 behind Shirai's 7.4, and they were the only two finalist who had difficult values scoring above 7.0. Ablyazin took home the bronze medal on rings too with a score of 15.700. Although he did also qualify for the vault final, he fell on both vaults and finished in eighth place.

2016

On May 25–29, Ablyazin (together with David Belyavskiy, Nikolai Kuksenkov, Nikita Ignatyev and Nikita Nagornyy) won Russia the Team gold at the 2016 European Championships, he qualified to two apparatus finals taking silver in Ring and finished seventh in Vault.

2016 Rio Olympics

On August 6–16, Ablyazin competed with the Russian Team (together with Ivan Stretovich, Nikita Nagornyy, Nikolai Kuksenkov and David Belyavskiy) at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he contributed scores of 15.100 in floor, 15.700 in rings, 15.600 vault, helping the Russian men's team win the silver medal with a total of 271.453 points. Ablyazin also qualified to two apparatus finals where he won bronze in rings and silver in vault behind Ri Se Gwang.

2017

Ablyazin took a hiatus after the Olympic season to recover from sustained ankle injuries and spent time with his new son Yaroslav. On August 23–27, Ablyazin returned to competition at the Russian Cup where he won bronze in the team event and gold in rings.

On October 2–8, 2017, Ablyazin competed at the 2017 World Championships in Montreal, Canada and finished with only one medal, a silver in the individual still rings event final with a combined score of 15.333 behind the 15.433 posted by the gold medalist Eleftherios Petrounias of Greece. As is customary again, no team event was held at this world championships due to 2016 being an Olympic year.

2019

In April, Ablyazin competed at the European Championships in Szczecin, Poland. He placed first on vault and rings.

In October, Ablyazin competed at the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. He placed sixth on rings, and his team won first overall.

2021

Ablyazin receives the Order of Friendship from Vladimir Putin in 2021

2020 Tokyo Olympics

At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, Ablyazin competed with the Russian Olympic Committee, a team including Denis Ablyazin, David Belyavskiy, Artur Dalaoyan, and Nikita Nagornyy. The team won Olympic gold with a combined score of 262.5. Ablyazin competed on floor (13.9), rings (15.033), and vault (14.866). In the vault final, Ablyazin tied for first place with Shin Jea-hwan of South Korea, but received the silver medal due to tie-breaking rules, as he had a lower highest individual vault score. This was his third Olympic silver medal in a row for vault, all three times losing the gold to a Korean gymnast. This was also his second Olympic medal decided in a tiebreaker, after floor final the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, where he tied for the second highest final score but due to tiebreaking rules he lost the silver medal to Kōhei Uchimura of Japan.

On 11 September, he along with his Olympic Team were awarded with Honor of Friendship medals by President Vladimir Putin.

Competitive history

Ablyazin, bronze medalist in men's rings at the 2016 Summer Olympics

Ablyazin, silver medalist in men's vault at the 2012 Summer Olympics

Year	Event	Team	AA	FX	PH	SR	VT	PB	HB
2011	National Championships	1st				3rd	7th
	European Championships			6th
	World Championships	4th					5th
2012	National Championships	2nd		1st		3rd	1st
	European Championships	2nd		6th		3rd	3rd
	Olympic Games	6th		3rd		5th	2nd
2013	National Championships	2nd		1st		1st	1st
	European Championships					5th	1st
	Universiade	1st		7th		2nd	2nd
	World Championships	—
2014	National Championships	1st		1st		2nd	1st
	European Championships	1st		1st		1st	1st
	World Championships	5th		1st		3rd	8th
2015	National Championships	3rd		1st		1st	1st
	European Championships					2nd	2nd
	World Championships	4th					6th
2016	National Championships	1st		2nd		1st	1st
	European Championships	1st				2nd	7th
	Olympic Games	2nd				3rd	2nd
2017	Russian Cup	3rd		4th		1st	5th
	World Championships	—				2nd
2019	European Championships					1st	1st
	World Championships	1st				6th
2020/21
	Olympic Games	1st					2nd

See also

• List of Olympic male artistic gymnasts for Russia

External links

• Denis ABLIAZIN at the International Gymnastics Federation
• Denis Mihajlovich Ablyazin at sportgymrus.ru (in Russian)
• Denis Ablyazin on Instagram