Artem Dolgopyat


Artem Olegovich Dolgopyat is a Ukrainian-born Israeli artistic gymnast. At the 2017 and 2019 World Championships, he won the silver medal in the floor exercise. He will represent Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Biography

Dolgopyat was born in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, and is of Jewish descent. His father was formerly a gymnast. At age 6, he was enrolled in gymnastics.
In 2009, Dolgopyat immigrated with his family to Israel, when he was 12 years old. There he was a part of the gymnastics team of Maccabi Tel Aviv. He first attended Shevah Mofet high school in Tel Aviv, and then a high school in Rishon Lezion. He is a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, serving in Tel HaShomer.

Sports career

At the age of 17, Dolgopyat competed in the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics and finished 5th in vault, 7th in floor exercise, and 10th in individual All-around.
On September 19, 2015, Dolgopyat competed in 'Grand Prix Osijek' in Croatia and won the gold medal in floor exercise, as he scored a 14.800. Later that year, Dolgopyat won the floor exercise in the Israeli Championship for the first time, defeating Alexander Shatilov. At the end of 2016, he took three months off from the sport, due to back pain.
On April 22, 2017, Dolgopyat competed for his first time in the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships, and finished 4th in the floor exercise with a score of 14.33, one place behind bronze medalist Shatilov. He received a prize of 4,500 NIS.
On May 20, Dolgopyat won the silver medal in 2017 Grand Prix Osijek after scoring 14.700. In July 2017, Dolgopyat participated in the 2017 Maccabiah Games, where he won two gold medals in the floor exercise and pommel horse, and a bronze medal in the vault.
On October 7, 2017, at the age of 20, at the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships held in Montreal, Dolgopyat won the silver medal in the floor exercise after scoring 14.533. He garnered the best Israeli result ever at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, as he became the second Israeli gymnast to win a medal in the Championships, and the first to win a silver medal. He scored 14.533 points, finishing 1.1 points behind Japan’s Olympican medalist Kenzo Shirai. He received a prize from the Olympic Committee of Israel of 84,000 NIS
On October 12, 2019, Dolgopyat won the silver medal again on floor exercise at the 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany with a score of 15.200 behind Carlos Yulo of the Philippines, who scored a 15.300. Dolgopyat and Yulo were both awarded the same execution score of 8.800, but the latter had a higher difficulty score of 6.5 versus the former's 6.4, which had resulted in Yulo securing this win.
Dolgopyat is coached by Sergei Vaisburg, Andrii Grybanov, and Oleg Yarovinski. Dolgopyat is noted for being able to do a triple back on the floor exercise.
He will represent Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics.