Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, artistry and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shoulders, back, chest, and abdominal muscle groups. Gymnastics evolved from exercises used by the ancient Greeks that included skills for mounting and dismounting a horse, and from circus performance skills.
1997 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.
Vladimir Nikolaevich Artemov is a former Russian artistic gymnast, Olympic champion and world champion who competed for the Soviet Union. He is considered to be one of the greatest parallel bars workers of all time.
Alexander "Alex" Shatilov is a USSR-born Israeli artistic gymnast. He specializes in the floor exercise, in which he won several medals at World and European Championships, reached the finals at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, and competed in the 2016 Summer Olympics. In 2013, Shatilov won a gold medal at the European Championship in gymnastics in Moscow, Russia. He represented Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Kōhei Uchimura is a retired Japanese artistic gymnast. He is a seven-time Olympic medalist, winning three golds and four silvers, and a 21-time World medalist.
The Artistic Gymnastics World Cup is a competition series for artistic gymnastics sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG). It is one of the few tournaments in artistic gymnastics officially organized by FIG, as well as the World Championships and the gymnastics competitions at the Olympic Games and the Youth Olympics. Beginning in the 2017-2020 quadrennium, the All-Around and Individual Apparatus World Cup series are used to qualify a maximum of seven spots to the Olympic Games.
The men's horizontal bar competition was one of eight events for male competitors in artistic gymnastics at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The qualification and final rounds took place on September 16 and 25 at the Sydney Super Dome. There were 79 competitors from 28 nations; nations competing in the team event could have up to 5 gymnasts in the vault, while other nations could have up to 2 gymnasts. The event was won by Alexei Nemov of Russia, the nation's first post-Soviet victory in the horizontal bar. Nemov, a bronze medalist in 1996, was the 10th man to win multiple medals in the horizontal bar. Benjamin Varonian earned France's first medal in the event since 1976 with his silver. Lee Joo-Hyung won South Korea's first medal in the event with his bronze.
Robert Tvorogal is a Lithuanian artistic gymnast. He is the 2019 European Games champion on the horizontal bar. He became the first Lithuanian to win a gold medal at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships when he won the horizontal bar title at the 2020 European Championships. He is also the 2022 European horizontal bar silver medalist and the 2020 European parallel bars bronze medalist. He represented Lithuania at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics.
Kristian James Thomas is a British former artistic gymnast. A long-standing member of both the England and Great Britain men's teams, he was a member of the British team that won gold in the 2012 European Championships team event, and a historic bronze in the same event at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He won his first global individual medal in the 2013 World Championships, a bronze in vault; it was also the first global medal ever won in vault by a British male gymnast. In 2015 he won his first major international title, gold in the floor exercise at the 2015 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
Marcel Van Minh Phuc Long Nguyen is a retired German artistic gymnast and three-time Olympian, having represented Germany at the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympic Games. He is the 2012 Olympic silver medalist in the all-around and on parallel bars as well as the 2011 and 2012 European Champion on the latter. He has been a soldier in the Bundeswehr since July 2007, beginning when he was training in the Bundeswehr Sports Development Group in Munich.
Finland competed at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics with a team of 8 boys and 6 girls, winning one bronze medal.
Alec Yoder is a retired American artistic gymnast. He represented the United States at the 2020 Olympic Games, competing as an individual athlete. He is the 2014 Youth Olympic all-around bronze medalist and the 2019 NCAA champion on pommel horse.
The Men's artistic gymnastics team all-around (AA) competition at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro was held on 8 August 2016 at the HSBC Arena.
Manrique Larduet Bicet is a Cuban artistic gymnast. At the 2015 World Championships, he won the silver medal in the all-around- becoming Cuba's first World all-around medalist. He is also the 2015 World horizontal bar bronze medalist, and he represented Cuba at the 2016 Summer Olympics. He is the 2015 Pan American Games vault champion and all-around silver medalist. He is the 2018 Pan American all-around champion and a two-time Pan American champion on the parallel bars At the 2014 Pan American Sports Festival he won medals in every event, including the all-around gold. He withdrew from the 2020 Summer Olympics due to a dispute with the Cuban Gymnastics Federation, and he now lives and trains in Italy.
You Hao is a Chinese artistic gymnast. He competed for the Chinese national team at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in 2013, 2014 and 2015. He became the World Champion on parallel bars at the 2015 World Championships.
Marios Georgiou is a Cypriot artistic gymnast. He is the 2022 European horizontal bar champion and the first gymnast from Cyprus to win a European title. He is the 2019 European Championships all-around bronze medalist which made him the first gymnast from Cyprus to win a European medal. He is the 2019 European Games parallel bars silver medalist. At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, he won the gold medals in the floor exercise and parallel bars and the bronze medal in the all-around, and he won four bronze medals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. He is the 2018 Mediterranean Games all-around and horizontal bar champion and the 2022 Mediterranean Games horizontal bar champion. He competed at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games.
The 2019 Junior World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were the inaugural Artistic Gymnastics Junior World Championships. They were held in Győr, Hungary from 27 June to 30 June 2019.
Dmitry Kasperovich is a Belarusian gymnast. He competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. He is affiliated with SKA Minsk. Kasperovich is a vault specialist.
Zhang Boheng is a Chinese artistic gymnast. He competed at the 2021 Chinese Artistic Gymnastics Championships and won the all-around at the 2021 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
Hu Xuwei is a Chinese artistic gymnast. He competed in the 2019 Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, winning gold medals in both the team event and the Horizontal bar final and winning silver in the all-around and parallel bar finals. At the 2021 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships he qualified in third for the parallel bars event and second for the horizontal bar event. He went on to win both the Parallel Bar final and the Horizontal Bar final; becoming the first athlete to hold both bar titles in a single World Championship since Boris Shakhlin in the 1958 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
Finland 
