While working on the data for the 2024 European Championships I noticed Manila Esposito had produced such an extraordinarily high stat line, that it is practically exclusive to only the most iconic Hall of Fame gymnasts of prior generations. While Esposito is a young gymnast who is nowhere near the level of a Hall of Fame gymnast when going by career medal count, when measuring her by single-competition medal count she is now statistically one of the greatest performers ever in the history of the European Championships.

With a medal haul of four gold medals including three in the individual events, this is a stat line that has traditionally been associated with only the most iconic names in the history of the sport. In the last thirty years only Svetlana Khorkina and Lilia Podkopayeva have been able to win three medals in the individual events at a single European Championships.

Podkopayeva has the distinction of being the only gymnast in between Ludmilla Turischeva in the 1970s and Simone Biles in the 2010s to hold both the World Championships and the Olympic All-Around title at the same time. Khorkina meanwhile is best known for being the only 3-peat All-Around gold medalist in that same Turischeva-Biles time period.

The stat line of winning three gold medals in a single European Championships has historically been so difficult to achieve, that the only gymnasts to have done it in the last thirty years are the two most successful gymnasts in All-Around competition in between Simone Biles and the 1970s. And now Manila Esposito has reached this same stat line with the three gold medals she won at the 2024 European Championships.

Winning a trifecta of gold medals has only occurred on twenty total occasions since the European Championships first began in the 1950s. And every single example is linked to either a gymnast who is already a member of the Hall of Fame, or is waiting on their inevitable induction. The statistic of winning three gold medals in the individual events at a single European Championships is so exclusive that 18 out of the 20 times it has previously happened occurred with a gymnast who also won an Olympic All-Around medal. Of the two who didn’t, both of them are Soviet All-Around gold medalists at the World Championships who never appeared in the Olympics. And in 2024 Manila became the 21st instance of this trend occurring.

Before Manila Esposito, every gymnast who has ever done this either went on to win an All-Around medal at the Olympics, or an All-Around gold medal at the World Championships.

There are an additional six examples of gymnasts who didn’t win three gold medals at a single European Championships, but did accumulate 9 points worth of medals which holds the same value as winning three gold medals in the points system. These are gymnasts who won fewer gold medals, but made up for it with an abnormally high number of total medals when counting the silver and bronze medals they won.

Of those six examples, 5 of 6 were linked to Olympic All-Around medalists, proving just how exclusive this sort of success is to Olympic All-Around medalists.

As audacious as it is to say, Manila Esposito is objectively one of the most successful gymnasts ever in the entire history of the European Championships. It may come with the caveat that this is only under the context of a single-competition record, but it is a mathematical fact. But when a young gymnast like Manila Esposito achieves such results so early in her career, the context doesn’t matter. This kid is something special.

Below is a list of the 21 examples of a gymnast winning three gold medals in a single European Championships. And below that is another list featuring the additional six examples of a gymnast hitting the 9-point benchmark.

Year	Name	Country
1957	Larissa Latynina	Soviet Union
1965	Vera Caslavska	Czechoslovakia
1967	Vera Caslavska	Czechoslovakia
1969	Karin Janz	East Germany
1971	Ludmilla Turischeva	Soviet Union
1971	Tamara Lazakovich	Soviet Union
1973	Ludmilla Turischeva	Soviet Union
1975	Nadia Comaneci	Romania
1977	Elena Mukhina	Soviet Union
1979	Nadia Comaneci	Romania
1981	Maxi  Gnauck	East Germany
1983	Olga Bicherova	Soviet Union
1985	Elena Shushunova	Soviet Union
1987	Daniela Silivas	Romania
1989	Svetlana Boginskaya	Soviet Union
1990	Svetlana Boginskaya	Soviet Union
1992	Tatiana Gutsu	Ukraine
1996	Lilia Podkopayeva	Ukraine
1998	Svetlana Khorkina	Russia
2000	Svetlana Khorkina	Russia
2024	Manila Esposito	Italy

Below are the gymnasts who did not achieve three gold medals in a single competition, but still reached the 9-point benchmark.

Year	Name	Country
1961	Larissa Latynina	Soviet Union
1961	Polina Astakhova	Soviet Union
1965	Larissa Latynina	Soviet Union
1969	Olga Karaseva	Soviet Union
1975	Nellie Kim	Soviet Union
1983	Ecaterina Szabo	Romania