Elena Colas, 16, wins four medals at European gymnastics championships in Zagreb

Four medals in four days

Elena Colas, a 16-year-old gymnast born on 1 May 2010 in Chambray-lès-Tours, collected four medals across four consecutive days at the 2026 European Championships in Zagreb, Croatia, in her first senior-level competition. The teenager, who stands 1m47 tall and trains at Avoine-Beaumont in Indre-et-Loire, opened her account on Thursday with bronze in the individual all-around. On Saturday 15 August, she won European gold on the beam, finishing ahead of two Olympic medalists, then claimed silver on floor exercise barely an hour later. On Sunday 16 August, she added a team bronze, completing a full set of gold, silver and bronze across the week.

Colas was named French champion in June and had previously earned three world medals and three European medals as a junior, according to Le Parisien. Despite her precocious rise, she failed to qualify for the final in her declared specialty, the uneven bars, exiting that event during qualifications. 20minutes described her as "the grande dame" of these championships, while Ouest France noted she had won "a medal per day" throughout the competition.

Team final

In the team competition on Sunday, France retained the bronze medal for the third consecutive year, matching its 2024 and 2025 results. The French squad, comprising Colas, Lorette Charpy, Morgane Osyssek-Reimer, Lola Chassat and Maïana Prat, totalled 159.263 points across the four apparatuses. Russia, competing under a neutral banner, won with 165.430 points, led by world and European all-around champion Angelina Melnikova. Italy took silver with 161.796 points, anchored by Manila Esposito.

Colas played a decisive role in the team final, particularly on the uneven bars, where she was strongly encouraged by her teammates before delivering a routine that secured France's podium place. She posted a score of 14.666 according to Ouest France (20minutes reported 14.600). She was one of only two French gymnasts, alongside Osyssek-Reimer, to compete across all four apparatuses, and recorded the highest individual total among her teammates on beam, floor and vault. The bronze is France's sixth team medal in the history of the European Championships: five bronze and one silver.

Composure under pressure

The tight Saturday schedule, with the beam final and floor final separated by only a short interval, tested Colas's mental preparation. She described her mindset between the two finals.

I just didn't have time to recover from my emotions on beam. I had five minutes to quickly run and quickly get back to floor. The pressure didn't have time to come. But otherwise, in general, I really wasn't very stressed. I felt really very serene.

Her gold-medal beam performance came on an apparatus just 10 centimetres wide, where the slightest error is costly, and was the product of eight years of training. Franceinfo described the performance as "magistrale." The victory on beam was followed almost immediately by the floor final, leaving no time for celebration. Libération's coverage of her European breakthrough also referenced an ongoing conflict between Colas and the French gymnastics federation, and Le Parisien noted her decision to remain with the French programme despite those tensions, though neither article elaborated on the specifics of the dispute.