Nadia Elena Comăneci Conner, known professionally as Nadia Comăneci, is a Romanian retired gymnast and a five-time Olympic gold medalist, all in individual events. In 1976, at the age of 14, Comăneci was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the Olympic Games. At the same Games she received six more perfect 10s for events en route to winning three gold medals. At the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow Comăneci won two more gold medals and achieved two more perfect 10s. During her career Comăneci won nine Olympic medals and four World Artistic Gymnastics Championship medals.
Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different apparatuses. The sport is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which designs the Code of Points and regulates all aspects of elite international competition. Within individual countries, gymnastics is regulated by national federations like British Gymnastics and USA Gymnastics. Artistic gymnastics is a popular spectator sport at many competitions, including the Summer Olympic Games.
Elena Vyacheslavovna Mukhina was a Soviet gymnast who won the all-around title at the 1978 World Championships in Strasbourg, France. Her career was on the rise, and she was widely touted as the next great gymnastics star until 1979, when she broke a leg and missed several competitions. The rushed recovery from that injury, combined with pressure to master a dangerous and difficult tumbling move caused her to break her neck two weeks before the opening of the 1980 Summer Olympics, leaving her permanently quadriplegic.
Kurt Bilteaux Thomas was an American Olympic gymnast and part-time actor. In 1978, he became the first American male gymnast to win a gold medal at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. In 1979, he won six medals at the world championship, setting the record for most medals won at a single world championship by an American gymnast, a feat matched only by Simone Biles in 2018. He competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Thomas was favored to win a medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics but was unable to compete due to the USA boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games.
Oksana Aleksandrovna Chusovitina is an eight-time Olympic gymnast who has competed for the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan, and Germany.
Mitchell Jay Gaylord is an American gymnast, actor, and Olympic gold medalist.
Elizabeth Kimberly Tweddle is a retired British artistic gymnast. Renowned for her uneven bar and floor routines, she was the first female gymnast from Great Britain to win a medal at the European Championships, World Championships, and Olympic Games. Tweddle, known for her consistency and longevity as an elite gymnast, is regarded as a pioneer of the renaissance of British gymnastics at the beginning of the twenty-first century that saw the country's gymnastics programme progress from 'also ran' to consistent global competitiveness.
Alexander Vladimirovich "Sasha" Artemev is a retired American artistic gymnast. Artemev was a member of the bronze medal-winning U.S. team at the 2008 Olympic Games. He is the 2006 all-around U.S. national champion. Known for his ability on pommel horse, he is the 2007 and 2008 U.S. national champion on the pommel horse and won the bronze medal on the event at the 2006 World Championships.
Louis Antoine Smith MBE is a retired British artistic gymnast.
Kōhei Uchimura is a retired Japanese artistic gymnast. He is a seven-time Olympic medalist, winning three golds and four silvers, and a twenty-one-time World medalist.
Shawn Johnson East is an American former artistic gymnast. She is the 2008 Olympic balance beam gold medalist and team, all-around and floor exercise silver medalist. Johnson is also the 2007 all-around World Champion, and a five-time Pan American Games gold medalist, winning the team titles in 2007 and 2011, as well as titles in the all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam in 2007.
Alicia Marie Sacramone Quinn is a retired American artistic gymnast. She won a silver medal with the United States team at the 2008 Summer Olympics. With a total of eleven World Championship and Olympic medals, Sacramone is the fourth most decorated U.S. female gymnast, behind Simone Biles (30), Shannon Miller (16), and Nastia Liukin (14).
Larisa Andreea Iordache is a former Romanian artistic gymnast. She represented Romania at the 2012 Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal with the team, and at the 2020 Olympic Games.
Sam Joshua Oldham is a retired English artistic gymnast who represented Great Britain. He was part of the British men's team at the 2012 Summer Olympics that won bronze in the team competition. He is also a three-time junior European champion and won individual horizontal bar gold at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore.
Max Antony Whitlock is a British artistic gymnast. He is a six-time Olympic medalist, winning three golds and three bronzes, and a five time world medalist on the pommel horse with three gold and two silvers. He became Britain's first ever Olympic gold medalist in artistic gymnastics when he won both the men's floor and pommel horse exercises at the 2016 Summer Olympics. With fourteen medals and six titles in Olympic and world championships, Whitlock is the most successful gymnast in his nation's history, and the most successful pommel horse worker in gymnastics history; he has 8 global medals in the apparatus, including 5 global gold medals.
Daniel Scott Purvis is a Scottish former international elite artistic gymnast, and three-time British all-around champion in men's artistic gymnastics. He trained at Southport YMCA and was coached by Jeff Brookes and Andrei Popov. He was part of the first British men's team to win a medal at a World Championships in 2015.
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.
McKayla Rose Maroney is a retired American artistic gymnast. She was a member of the American women's gymnastics team dubbed the Fierce Five at the 2012 Summer Olympics, where she won a gold medal in the team and an individual silver medal in the vault event. Maroney was also a member of the gold-winning American team at the 2011 World Championships, where she won gold medals in the team and vault competitions. She defended her World title and won the gold medal on vault at the 2013 World Championships, becoming the first U.S. female gymnast to defend a World Championship vault title.
Kieran Behan OLY is an Irish artistic gymnast, who represents Ireland internationally. He is the first ever Irish gymnast to qualify for the Olympic Games competing at both London 2012 and Rio 2016.
The men's vault competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics was held at the North Greenwich Arena on 6 August. It included 17 competitors from 14 nations.
France 
