Male Gymnasts

With his 2008 Beijing Olympic bronze medal, Louis Smith became the second Black male gymnast to have won the medal. A pommel horse expert, he later won three more Olympic medals. He had ADHD as a child and later also won a choral scholarship but chose to focus on gymnastics instead.

With his mother and stepfather both being national gymnasts from Cuba, Danell Leyva was bound to follow in their footsteps. The Cuban-American gymnast has won 2 silvers and 1 bronze at the Olympics. In 2020, he came out as pansexual and bisexual, hoping it would ease things for other LGBT individuals.

Retired Belarusian artistic gymnast Vitaly Scherbo became the only male gymnast to win a world title in all 8 events. He has also won 6 gold medals in the Olympics and was the first person to win 4 gold medals in one day. The Scherbo vault has been named after him.

Legendary Chinese gymnast Li Ning not only has 3 Olympic gold medals in his kitty but is now also a billionaire entrepreneur and the owner of a self-titled sports apparel and equipment brand. Starting training at age 8, he later earned the unofficial title of the Prince of Gymnastics in China.

American gymnastics legend Bart Conner is the only male gymnast from his country to have won gold medals at all levels of national and international competition. A 2-time Olympic gold medalist, he also has a journalism degree. He now runs a gymnastics academy with his wife and Romanian Olympic champion Nadia Comaneci.

Two-time Commonwealth gold-winning gymnast Nile Wilson is also a World Championship silver medalist and an Olympic bronze medalist. He retired from the sport at age 21. He is also a social-media star, with two popular YouTube channels, where he posts his work-out videos and other life stories.

Kurt Thomas was a gymnast who became the first American male gymnast to win a gold medal at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in 1978. He won six medals at the world championship in 1979 and was also the James E. Sullivan Award winner that year. He appeared in the 1985 film Gymkata. 

Once a US national champion, gymnast Paul Hunt also made use of his sense of humor, often performing comic-relief routines, dressed in skirts, using pseudonyms such as Paulina and Pauletta. A talented coach, he was forced to shut down his gymnastics academy in Salt Lake City due to COVID-19.

Apart from being an Olympic gold medalist, US gymnast Mitch Gaylord also experimented with acting. He scripted history by becoming the first gymnast from the US to score a perfect 10 in the Olympics. He later starred in American Anthem and worked as a stunt double in Batman Forever.

Chinese former artistic gymnast and the owner of Chow’s Gym, Liang Chow has over 30 international gold medals in his kitty. He later moved to the US, where he focused on coaching. He is known for training Olympic gold medalists such as Gabby Douglas and Shawn Johnson.

Known as Olympic champion Russian-American gymnast Nastia Lukin’s father, Soviet gymnast Valeri Liukin has himself won 2 gold and 2 silver medals at the Olympics. Part of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame, he became a successful gymnastics coach in the US and also coached the Brazilian national women's gymnastics team.

Former Bulgarian gymnast and current president of Bulgarian Gymnastics Federation Yordan Yovchev competed in six successive Olympic Games and won two bronze in 2000 and one silver and one bronze in 2004. Other achievements of Yovchev includes winning four gold medals at the World Championships, two each in 2001 and 2003; and one gold at European Men's Championships in 2002.

Apart from being a 3-time World champion and a 4-time European champion, Max Whitlock has also earned 6 Olympic medals, 3 of them gold. He also scripted history by becoming the first British artistic gymnast to win an Olympic gold medal. He has been named an MBE, too.

American trampoline gymnast David Jacobs first gained attention after winning the synchronized trampoline title at the 1966 Trampoline World Championships. He later won 2 more World Championship golds and a silver. He is also known for an impromptu appearance on the hidden-camera reality show Impractical Jokers.

Born in South Korea, Yul Moldauer was born prematurely and had medical issues. Adopted before turning 1, he grew up on a Colorado farm. Starting his gymnastics training at 10, he later became a star athlete of the University of Oklahoma gymnastics team. He grew to win a World Championship bronze.

Paul Hamm is a former artistic gymnast who won the gold medal in the individual all-around competition at the 2004 Olympic Games. In the same Olympic Games, he also won a silver medal each in the horizontal bar competition and the team all-around competition. A two-time World Championship gold medalist, Hamm is recognized as the most successful American male gymnast.

Part of the team that scripted history by winning the US its first men’s gymnastics Olympic team gold, at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Tim Daggett himself scored a perfect 10 on the high bar. His career was also riddled with injuries. Post-retirement, he became a coach and an NBC analyst.

Gísli Örn Garðarsson is an Icelandic actor and occasional scriptwriter and producer. Also a theatre director, Gísli Örn is credited with co-founding a theatre and film company called Vesturport. Gísli Örn Garðarsson is best known for his portrayal of Garðar in the 2006 Icelandic film Children, which earned him a Shooting Stars Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2007.

Damien Walters is an English athlete, stuntman, and former gymnast. Walters, who specializes in trampoline and tumbling, has taken part in four Trampoline World Championships. In 2003, he helped his team win the World Title of Trampoline World Championships in the team competition. As a stunt performer, Walters received the 2010 Taurus World Stunt Award for the film Ninja Assassin.

Laurent Landi is a French-American retired gymnast who represented the French national team during his competitive career. Landi is best known for his achievements as an artistic gymnastics coach. Over the years, he has coached accomplished gymnasts like Madison Kocian, Simone Biles, Alyssa Baumann, and Briley Casanova.

At 16, gymnast Li Xiaopeng was already a world champion. The winner of 16 major international championships, Xiaopeng was first inspired to take up the sport at age 6, after watching his idol Li Ning. The 4-time Olympic gold medalist has also appeared on TV shows such as Dad Came Back.

Chris Brooks is an American retired gymnast best known for winning five gold medals in the Pacific Rim Championships. He is also known for winning two bronze medals at the 2010 World Cup. After retiring from his competitive career, Chris Brooks has established himself as a coach. He currently works with the Arkansas Razorbacks gymnastics team as an assistant coach. 

Joe Fraser is an artistic gymnast who became the first and only English gymnast to win gold on Parallel Bars at the world championships when he won the medal at the 2019 World Championships. Since 2017, Joe Fraser has been an important member of the English Senior team, helping his team win the silver medal at the 2018 European Championships.

Marian Drăgulescu is a Romanian artistic gymnast best known for winning a silver medal and two bronze medals at the 2004 Olympic Games. An eight-time world champion and ten-time European champion, Drăgulescu was named Gymnast of the Year in 2002 and Romanian Sportsman of the Year in 2009. Marian Drăgulescu is the oldest individual vault finalist at the World Championships.

Jonathan Horton is an American retired artistic gymnast who won a silver medal and a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. He also has two World Championship bronze medals under his belt. In 2008, Jonathan Horton was named USA Gymnastics Men's Athlete of the Year after his impressive performance in the Olympic Games.

John Orozco is an American artistic gymnast best known for winning a bronze medal each in 2011, 2013, and 2014 World Championships. A four-time Pacific Rim champion, Orozco represented the U.S. gymnastics team in major competitions before switching his affiliation to Puerto Rico in 2020.

Eleftherios Petrounias is a Greek artistic gymnast who was adjudged Greek Male Athlete of the Year for four consecutive years starting from 2015. Petrounias achieved national prominence when he won the gold medal at the 2016 Olympic Games. In the 2020 Olympics, he went on to win a bronze medal for his country. Petrounias is also a multiple-time European Champion.

Two-time World Championship bronze-winning gymnast Donnell Whittenburg also has a Pan American Games team gold in his kitty. The Baltimore-based gymnast was part of the 2016 US Olympic team, as an alternate. The Whittenburg dismount, known as the second-toughest in terms of difficulty scores, is named after him.

Morgan Hamm is an American artistic gymnast who represented the US men's artistic team which won a silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. He was also an important member of the team that won a silver medal at the 2003 World Championships. Hamm is also credited with officially introducing an acrobatic movement called the Airflare to gymnastics.