Gymnasts

Simone Biles is an artistic gymnast. Having won a combined total of 30 World Championship and Olympic medals, Biles is the world's third-most decorated gymnast and the most decorated in America. Regarded as the greatest gymnast of all time by some, Simone Biles continues to inspire several aspiring gymnasts around the world, especially gymnasts from the black community.

Retired artistic gymnast Gabby Douglas became an all-around Olympic champion in 2012, becoming the first African-American to achieve the feat. She is also the first American to win gold in both the individual and team competitions at the same Olympic event. She inspired the biopic The Gabby Douglas Story.

Nastia Liukin made headlines with her 5-medal haul at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Born to an Olympic medalist gymnast father and a world champion gymnast mother, she was destined to make a career in the sport. She is now part of the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Retired gymnast Mary Lou Retton, known for her trademark, The Retton Flip, made history by becoming the first American female gymnast to win an individual Olympic gold medal and was the first gymnast named to the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. She later became a motivational speaker.

Born to Puerto Rican-American parents, Laurie Hernandez was homeschooled since third grade and began training in gymnastics at age 5. At 16, she was the youngest of the Final Five that won a team gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Her wide smile has earned her the nickname The Human Emoji.

Olga Korbut is a former gymnast who represented the Soviet Union in two Olympic Games, winning four gold medals and two silver medals. Nicknamed the Sparrow from Minsk, Korbut also participated in the 18th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships where she won two gold medals and four silver medals. In 1988, she was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame. 

Shannon Miller is a former artistic gymnast who is one of the most decorated US female gymnasts in Olympics history. She is the winner of seven Olympic medals, including the five she won at the 1992 Olympics, and 16 World Championships.  She is a member of the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame and the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.   

Alicia Sacramone is a retired artistic gymnast who won a silver medal with the United States team at the 2008 Summer Olympics. With a total of 11 Olympic and World Championship medals, she is one of the most decorated U.S. female gymnasts. She is also a spokeswoman for a fitness company and has appeared in a few commercials. 

Carly Patterson is a former artistic gymnast who was the all-around champion at the 2004 Olympics. She was coached by former Israeli Olympian Yohanan Moyal and started competing internationally in 2000. She is a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame. She is also a singer-songwriter and a motivational speaker. She has appeared on the TV show Celebrity Duets. 

Known as Awesome Dawesome, Dominique Dawes is a retired star gymnast from the U.S. who was part of the gold-winning team at the Atlanta Olympics. She also became the first African-American to earn an individual Olympic medal, with her bronze. She is also part of the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Gymnast Dominique Moceanu was part of the Magnificent Seven, the women’s team that won the gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. After retiring, she has studied management and also penned a book. She also sued her father for misusing her earnings as a gymnast and won the case.

Known as the Belarusian Swan, Svetlana Boginskaya started off as a figure skater before moving on to gymnastics at age 6. By 14, she was part of the Soviet national gymnastics team. The three-time Olympic champion is now settled in Texas and owns businesses that provide gymnastics camps and apparel.

Nadia Comaneci is a Romanian former gymnast. One of the best-known gymnasts in the world, Comaneci has five Olympic gold medals under her belt. Credited with popularizing gymnastics around the world, Nadia Comaneci was honored by the Laureus World Sports Academy by including her in their Athletes of the 20th Century list in 2000.

Shawn Johnson is a former artistic gymnast who won the 2008 Olympic balance beam gold medal. She is a five-time Pan American Games gold medalist and a three-time U.S. all-around champion as well. She retired from gymnastics in  2012. She was the winner of season eight of the dance competition show Dancing with the Stars.  

Apart from being the first Hmong-American to participate in the Olympics, Sunisa Lee has also won a gold, a team silver, and a bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She was also the 2019 world champion. Named to Time 100 in 2021, she was pepper-sprayed in a racist attack in Los Angeles.

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.

Věra Čáslavská was a Czechoslovak artistic gymnast who won 22 international titles, including 11 European Championships, four World Championships, and seven Olympic gold medals. The most decorated gymnast in Czech history, Čáslavská is the only gymnast to have won at least one Olympic gold in each individual event. In 1998, she was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Kerri Strug is a retired gymnast who was a member of the all-around women's gymnastics team that represented USA at the 1996 Summer Olympics and won the gold medal. She began training in gymnastics as a child. She was mentored by coach Béla Károlyi and made her way to the US national team. She became a teacher after retirement. 

Gifted with a chiseled body, Ashley Mae Sebera, better known as Dana Brooke, was initially a diver and a gymnast but switched to bodybuilding and fitness championships after repeated injuries. She later gained fame as a WWE wrestler. Equipped with a fashion degree, she also launched a boutique.

Once a Junior Olympic gymnast, wrestler Kacy Catanzaro later scripted history by becoming the first woman to scale the Warped Wall obstacle on the NBC show American Ninja Warrior. She has also been featured on Sports Illustrated’s Fitted 50 twice. She now works for NXT, as part of WWE.

The youngest member of the US artistic gymnastics team at the 2012 London Olympics, Kyla Ross won the team gold at the event, and became the first female gymnast to win the Olympic, the World, and the NCAA championships. Now a youth gymnastics coach, she has also launched her own line of leotards.

Jordyn Wieber is a former artistic gymnast who was a member of the gold-medal-winning U.S. Women's Gymnastics team at the 2012 Summer Olympics. She was also a part of the victorious American team at the 2011 World Championships. She became a gymnastics coach after retirement and currently coaches the Arkansas Razorbacks gymnastics team.  

Canadian rhythmic gymnast and contortionist Emilie Goldblum (née Livingston), wife of actor Jeff Goldblum, is a three-time national champion and was placed 18th in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She also won a gold at the 1999 Pan American Games. She has been a body double for Emma Stone and Rihanna.

Ariana Berlin is an artistic gymnast and dancer. She competed for the UCLA Bruins gymnastics team from 2006 to 2009. One of UCLA’s most consistent athletes, she is a four-time All-American. She is also trained in break-dancing and has worked as a stunt performer in several television shows. Currently, she is an associate producer at Fox Sports.  

Part of the gold-winning American Final Five at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Madison Kocian had also earned a silver on uneven bars at the same event. She began training in gymnastics at age 5 and retired in 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic halted her UCLA Bruins final season.

MyKayla Skinner is a former artistic gymnast who was the 2020 Olympic vault silver medalist. Previously, she was part of the US team that competed at the 2014 World Championships and won a gold medal. She captured a total of 11 medals at the USA National Championships during her senior career. She survived Covid-19 in 2021.

Known as Britain’s most successful gymnast, Beth Tweddle is a 3-time world champion and a 6-time European champion, apart from being an Olympic bronze medalist. Born in South Africa, she moved to England as a toddler and began training in gymnastics ate age 7. She has been named an MBE, too.

Though Jade Carey signed with the Oregon State University gymnastics team in 2017, she deferred her enrollment, to train for the Olympics. The Phoenix-based artistic gymnast eventually won a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Born to a gymnastics trainer father, she showed an interest in the sport at age 4.

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.

Ragan Smith is a collegiate gymnast who emerged as the 2017 United States national all-around champion. She was a member of the US National Team from 2014 to 2019 and competed at the City of Jesolo Trophy. She competes on vault, balance beam, uneven bars, and floor exercises. She is currently signed with the Oklahoma Sooners women's gymnastics program. 

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.

Apart from 4 Commonwealth gold medals, British artistic gymnast Claudia Fragapane has also earned 3 European Championship silver medals and two World Championship bronze medals. She also reached the semi-finals of the reality show Strictly Come Dancing at 18, the second-youngest public figure on the show ever.

Isidora Goreshter is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Svetlana on the popular comedy-drama TV series, Shameless. Goreshter competed in gymnastics prior to her acting career. In 1992, she took part in the California State Cup Championship and the Central Pacific Championships, earning second place overall in the latter.

Aurelia Dobre is a Romanian former artistic gymnast who won three gold medals at the 24th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in 1987. In the same World Championships, she won two bronze medals. In 1988, she helped her team win the silver medal at the Summer Olympics. In 2016, she was made an inductee of the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

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. 

Irish-born gymnasts of Azerbaijani origin, Jennifer Gadirova and her twin, Jessica, have both excelled at artistic gymnastics at the international level. Jennifer has not only won an Olympic bronze for Britain but also became the first British gymnast to earn a Junior World Championship medal, with her silver win in 2019.

Daniela Silivaș is a Romanian former artistic gymnast. She is best known for winning six medals (three gold, two silver, and one bronze) at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. She also earned six individual World Championships titles in her five-year tenure as a Romanian senior national team member. She became a coach after retiring in 1991.