Famous Black Gymnasts in celebration of Black History Month
Most decorated gymnast
Simone Biles
Simone Arianne Biles born March 14, 1997, is an American artistic gymnast. With a combined total of 32 Olympic and World Championship medals.
Parallel Bars World Champion
Joe Frasier
Joe Fraser born 6 December 1998 is an English artistic gymnast. He is the 2019 world champion on the parallel bars, the first and only British gymnast to ever win gold on this apparatus at the world championships
Britain's most famous gymnastic sisters
The Downie Sisters, Becky and Ellie
Rebecca "Becky" Downie born 24 January 1992 in Nottingham is a British artistic gymnast who competed at the 2008 and 2016 Summer Olympics. She is a double European champion in 2014 and 2016 and 2014 Commonwealth Games champion on the uneven bars as well as the 2019 World silver medallist.
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Elissa Rebecca "Ellie" Downie born 20 July 1999 in Nottingham is an artistic gymnast who represents Great Britain. She is the All-around 2017 European gymnastics champion, the first gymnast to win a major all-around title for Great Britain.
Pommel Horse specialist
Louis Smith
Louis Antoine Smith, MBE born 22 April 1989 is a retired British artistic gymnast.
He received a bronze medal and two silver medals on the pommel horse at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 2012 London Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics respectively, with the former marking the first time a British gymnast had placed in an Olympic event since 1928. He followed this up with a second consecutive silver medal the pommel horse at the 2016 Rio Olympics
Olympic Gymnast
Betty Okino
Elizabeth Anna Okino born June 4, 1975, in Entebbe, Uganda is a retired American gymnast, a member of the famous "Károlyi Six-Pack" who in 1992, helped the United States win their first Olympic team medal, in a non-boycotted Olympic Games. She is also the first black woman of any nationality to win multiple individual World Championship medals in gymnastics.
Commonwealth Games All-around Champion
Kanukai Jackson
Kanukai Jackson was born on 15 February 1978 is a British male artistic gymnast, who represented his nation at international competitions.
He is the 2002 Common Wealth Games Individual All-Around Gold medalist and Team Gold medalist.
Commonwealth Games Rings Champion
Courtney Tulloch
Courtney James Matthew Winston Tulloch born 6 October 1995 is a British elite international artistic gymnast. Representing England, he is the Commonwealth Games Champion on rings and a silver medallist on vault.
First Brazilian female Olympic medalist
Rebbeca Andrade
Rebeca Rodrigues de Andrade born 8 May 1999 is a Brazilian artistic gymnast and two-time Olympian, having represented Brazil at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games. She is the 2020 vault Olympic champion, the 2020 All-Around Olympic silver medalist, 2021 Pan American champion, and was a member of the teams who won gold at the 2021 Pan American Championships and silver at the 2018 Pan American Championships. Andrade is the first Brazilian women's artistic gymnast to medal at an Olympic Games and the first Olympic all-around medalist who qualified as an individual.
Uneven bars Champion
Georgia-Mae Fenton
Georgia-Mae Fenton born 2 November 2000 is a British artistic gymnast. She represented Great Britain at the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Montreal, in October 2017, and England at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast. At the latter, she won the uneven bars title, her first significant senior championship win.
Three-time Olympian
Dominique Dawes
Dominique Margaux Dawes born November 20, 1976, is a retired American artistic gymnast. Known in the gymnastics community as 'Awesome Dawesome,' she was a 10-year member of the U.S. national gymnastics team, the 1994 U.S. all-around senior National Champion, a three-time Olympian, a World Championship silver and bronze medalist, and a member of the gold-medal-winning "Magnificent Seven" team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She is also one of only three female American gymnasts, to compete in three Olympics and was part of their medal-winning teams: Barcelona 1992 (bronze), Atlanta 1996 (gold), and Sydney 2000 (bronze). She is also the Olympic bronze medalist on floor exercise from the Atlanta games.
Olympic Champion
Gabby Douglas
Gabrielle Christina Victoria Douglas born December 31 1995, is a retired American artistic gymnast. She is the 2012 Olympic all-around champion and the 2015 World all-around silver medalist. She was a member of the gold-winning teams at both the 2012 and the 2016 Summer Olympics, dubbed the "Fierce Five" and the "Final Five". She was also a member of the gold-winning American teams at the 2011 and the 2015 World Championships.
Douglas is the first African American to become the Olympic individual all-around champion, and the first U.S. gymnast to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competitions at the same Olympics.
European Champion
Melanie de Jesus dos Santos
Mélanie Johanna de Jesus dos Santos born 5 March 2000 is a French artistic gymnast who competed at the 2020 Olympic Games. Internationally, she is the 2019 European all-around champion, a two time European champion on floor exercise 2018, 2019, and the 2021 European champion on the balance beam.
Celebrate black gymnasts
We want to celebrate the achievements of Black gymnasts, not just during Black History Month, but every day.