Gymnastics Explained
Gymnasts
Profiles selected for explanatory value, not a comprehensive results database: today's British stars, the pioneers before them, and international greats.
13 pages in this section
Great Britain
Great Britain
Alice Kinsella
Alice Kinsella is a British all-arounder whose favourite apparatus is beam: Great Britain's first European beam champion, an Olympic team bronze medallist at Tokyo 2020, a world team silver medallist and a three-time Commonwealth champion for England.
Great Britain
Becky Downie
Becky Downie is a British uneven bars specialist and three-time Olympian: a two-time European bars champion, 2014 Commonwealth champion, 2019 world bars silver medallist and the gymnast an uneven bars element, the Downie, is named after.
Great Britain
Beth Tweddle
Beth Tweddle is a British gymnast and uneven bars specialist, a three-time World Champion and 2012 Olympic bronze medallist whose results are widely credited as milestones for British women's artistic gymnastics.
Great Britain
Harry Hepworth
Harry Hepworth is a British gymnast who specialises in vault, rings and floor. At Paris 2024 he won vault bronze, Team GB's first Olympic medal on vault, and became the first British gymnast to reach an Olympic rings final.
Great Britain
Jake Jarman
Jake Jarman is a British gymnast known for floor and vault: world vault champion in 2023, world floor champion in 2025, Olympic floor bronze medallist at Paris 2024 and a double world silver medallist in 2026, with a floor element named after him.
Great Britain
Jessica Gadirova
Jessica Gadirova is a British gymnast and all-arounder whose best apparatus is floor: the 2022 world floor champion, the first British woman to win a world all-around medal, and a three-time European floor champion.
Great Britain
Joe Fraser
Joe Fraser is a British all-around gymnast: Great Britain's first world parallel bars champion (2019), the 2022 European all-around champion and the 2026 world all-around bronze medallist, with world, European and Commonwealth medals on several apparatus.
Great Britain
Louis Smith
Louis Smith is a British gymnast and pommel horse specialist who won four Olympic medals across three Games, including the first individual British Olympic gymnastics medal in a century when he took bronze in 2008.
Great Britain
Max Whitlock
Max Whitlock is a British gymnast and three-time Olympic champion, the most decorated gymnast in British Olympic history, best known for his pommel horse consistency.
International
Japan
Kohei Uchimura
Kohei Uchimura is a Japanese gymnast and back-to-back Olympic all-around champion (2012, 2016), widely regarded as the most complete all-around competitor in men's gymnastics history.
Romania
Nadia Comăneci
Nadia Comăneci is a Romanian gymnast who scored gymnastics' first Olympic perfect 10 in 1976 on her way to three gold medals, and added two more golds at the 1980 Games.
Soviet Union
Olga Korbut
Olga Korbut is a Soviet-era gymnast and four-time Olympic gold medallist widely credited with bringing international television attention to artistic gymnastics through her expressive routines at the 1972 Olympics.
United States
Simone Biles
Simone Biles is an American gymnast with 11 Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals, widely regarded as the most decorated gymnast in history, with named skills credited to her on three apparatus.