You're reading: Ukraine wins first Olympic gold in Rio (VIDEO)

Gymnast Oleg Verniaiev, 22, has won Ukraine’s first gold medal at the Rio Summer Olympics in Brazil.

Verniaiev won the parallel bars event in the men’s gymnastics competition on Aug. 16. It was Vernyayev’s second medal in Rio he won a silver last week in the men’s all-around competition.

According to Ukrainian Sports Minister Ihor Zhdanov, Verniaiev will receive a $125,000 prize from the Ukrainian government for his achievement, Ukrainian television channel 5 Kanal reported.

“We have our first gold,” Zhdanov said. “He was a hope of ours, and he lived up to it. I congratulate all of the people of Ukraine on this first gold, and I think that this is not going to be the last.”

The Ukrainian gymnast won with a score of 16.041 (7.100 for difficulty and 8.941 for performance). U.S. gymnast Danell Leyva won silver (15.900) and Russian David Belyavskiy won bronze.

This is a video about Ukraine’s gold medalist Oleg Verniaiev filmed by European Union of Gymnastics.

Born in Donetsk, Verniaiev, who is 5.3 feet tall (161 centimeters) and weighs 55 kilograms, has been living and training in Kyiv for the last eight years. The parallel bars is his best apparatus – he has previously won gold at the World Cup, European Championships, and European Games in this discipline.

Ukraine has so far won one gold medal, four silvers and one bronze. The Ukrainian team is now 33rd in the official Olympic medal count.

Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be
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