Marian Dragulescu
Country: Romania
Date of birth: 18 December 1980
Place of birth: Bucharest
Height and weight: 162 cm, 64 kg
Disciplines: Vault and Floor
Greatest achievements: Eight times World Champion and ten-time European Champion
Interesting facts: 31-time medal winner at European and World Championships and also at the Olympic competition. His name will be forever remembered in the history of gymnastics. The extremely difficult Vault element with two jumps and a half turn of 180 degrees is known as „dragulescu“. It is an element that has changed Vault as a discipline.
Aliia Mustafina
Country: Russia
Date of birth: 30 September 1994
Place of birth: Yegoryevsk
Height and weight: 162 cm, 48 kg
Disciplines: Vault, Uneven bars, Floor, Balanced beam
Greatest achievements: Olympic Winner in uneven bars (London 2012, Rio de Janeiro 2016), World Champion in a team and All-Around Individual (Rotterdam 2010) and on a Balance beam (Antwerpen 2013).
Interesting facts: One of the best Russian gymnasts of all times, winner of 7 Olympic medals along with Svjetlana Khorkina. She the most successful gymnast presenting Russia (excluding gymnasts from the Soviet Union). The only one with Khorkina who has defended the Olympic Champion title in the same discipline (2012 in London and 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Balance beam). Along with Simona Amanar (Romania), she is the only winner of two Olympic medals in All-Around Individual at different Olympic Games. So far she has won 38 medals which of 16 are gold medals from the Olympic Games, Europe, and World Championships, European Games and Universiade. She is one of the nine gymnasts who have a medal in World Championships in all individual disciplines. With four won medals at the Olympic Games in London (gold in Uneven bars, silver in team and bronze in All-Around and on the Floor) she was the most successful gymnast of the Olympic Games and the most successful athlete of the London Olympic Games if swimming competitions are excluded. Her father Farhat Mustafin is a winner of a bronze medal in Greco-Roman wrestling style in Montreal, 1976. After winning gold at the Olympic Games in London she was given an Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin which was prior given to 33 Russian athletes. This year she has returned to gymnastics after giving birth to her daughter Alisa.
Oksana Chusovitina
Country: Uzbekistan
Date of birth: 19 June 1975
Place of birth: Bukhara
Height and weight: 153 cm, 44 kg
Disciplines: Vault and Balance beam
Greatest achievements: Olympian Champion in the team (Barcelona 1992) World Champion in team and floor (Indianapolis 1991) and Vault (Anaheim 2003)
Interesting facts: Oldest active gymnast, record holder in gymnastics with seven appearances on Olympic Games. She has represented four different countries (Soviet Union, Germany, Uzbekistan, and Commonwealth of Independent States). She was 41 and two months years old when she appeared at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. That were the seventh Olympic Games for her which makes her unique. On her first Olympic Games in Barcelona, she won a gold medal in team competition. She is the owner of nine single medals on World Championships in the same discipline (Vault).
Zsofia Kovacs
Country: Hungary
Date of birth: 6 April 2000
Place of birth: Pentela
Height and weight: 157 cm, 48 kg
Disciplines: Balance beam, Vault, Uneven bars
Greatest achievements: Participant of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, silver medal on European Championships in All-Around Individual (Cluj 2017)
Interesting facts: Since 2016 she takes part in a German club TZ DSHS Koln to which she has brought a title in All-Around Individual back in 2016. At last year’s European Championship in Cluj, she won a silver medal in All-Around Individual which is the first Hungarian medal in female competitions after Adrienn Varga, who has won a gold medal in 1998 in Vault.
Denis Ablyazin
Country: Russia
Date of birth: 3 August 1992
Place of birth: Penza
Height and weight: 161 cm, 62 kg
Disciplines: Floor, Rings, Vault
Greatest achievements: Six times European and World Champion on the Floor (Nanning 2014.). Winner of five Olympic medals in three different disciplines and in the team competition.
Interesting facts: His talent for the sports was recognized when he was a child. As a boy, he trained ice hockey, dreaming of becoming an NHL star one day. He also tried cycling and soccer. Finally, he opted for gymnastics when he won a gold medal on Spartakiade, a youth sports festival which was held in a Russian city Čeljabinsku. On his first World Championship in 2011 in Tokyo, he took fourth place in the team competition and fifth place on the Vault. He entered the finale on the Vault as a reserve from the qualifications, where he earned the ninth score, but in the fight for the medals, he took the place of Rumanian Marian Dragulesco who gave up the competition due to an injury. Interestingly, Ablyazin and Dragulescu will meet in the City Hall in Osijek. He won his first important medal at the European Championship in Moscow in 2013 when he won a gold on the Vault. Since then he has been six-time European Champion on the Vault, Rings, Floor as well as in the team competition. In Nanning, back in 2014, he became a World Champion on the Floor, but in his collection of 23 medals, he is still missing a golden Olympic medal. He has already won three silver medals (Vault in London and Rio de Janeiro and team in Rio de Janeiro) and two bronze medals (2012 in the Floor and 2016 in the Rings). His collection of medals is owned by his family. In September 2016 he married Ksenia Semyonova, a double World Champion (Stuttgart 2007 on Uneven Bars and Rotterdam 2010 in a team), with whom he got a son named Yaroslav back in 2017.
Igor Radivilov
Country: Ukraine
Date of birth: 19 October 1992
Place of birth: Mariupol
Height and weight: 168 cm, 67 kg
Disciplines: Vault and Rings
Greatest achievements: World Champion from Moscow 2013 (Rings), the bronze medal at the Olympic Games in London 2012 (Vault)
Interesting facts: His element on the Vault “Radivilov”, which he presented at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, was forbidden by the World Gymnast Federation due to the danger of injuries. Although he is the first Ukrainian gymnast with an Olympic medal after the Soviet Union. He is being outshined today by the great All-Around Individual Oleg Verniaev.
Artem Dolgopyat
Country: Israel
Date of birth: 16 June 1997
Place of birth: Dnipro (Ukraine)
Height and weight: 164 cm, 59 kg
Disciplines: Floor and Vault
Greatest achievements: The silver medal from a World Championship in Montreal, 2017
Interesting facts: He immigrated to Israel with his family when he was 12 years old. His father was also a gymnast. He has a sergeant rank in the Israeli army. He is one of the gymnasts whose time is yet to come.
Alexander Shatilov
Country: Israel
Date of birth: 22 March 1987
Place of birth: Tashkent (Uzbekistan)
Height and weight: 183 cm, 77 kg
Disciplines: Floor and Bars
Greatest achievements: European Champion on the Floor (Moscow 2013), the silver medal from European Championship (Berlin 2011), the bronze medal from a World Championship back in 2009 (London) and 2011 (Madrid), winner of five bronze medals on European Championships
Interesting facts: He immigrated to Israel with his family in 2002. One of the world´s tallest gymnasts and a regular participant of the World Cup in Osijek where he has made his greatest successes on the floor and often on bars.
Yuri Van Gelder
Country: Netherland
Date of birth: 20 April 1983
Place of birth: Waalwijk
Height and weight: 161 cm, 63 kg
Disciplines: Rings
Greatest achievements: European Champion (Debrecen 2005) and World Champion (Melbourne 2005)
Interesting facts: After becoming a World Champion he was called „Lord of the rings”, however, since his career has caused a lot of controversy Van Gelder was also known as the bad boy of the world gymnastics. Because of cocaine consummation, he was suspended in 2009. After the suspension, he successfully returned but was still connected to further scandals. After getting to the finals of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, he left the Olympic village in the night, for which he was automatically suspended by the Dutch Olympic Committee. He was then given a new nickname from the Dutch media, “Lord of the drinks”.
Sašo Bertoncelj
Country: Slovenia
Date of birth: 16 July 1984
Place of birth: Kranj
Disciplines: Pommel horse
Greatest achievements: Third place at the European Championship in Sofia (2014) and Birmingham (2010), winner of European Games (Baku 2015), fourth at the World Championship (Nanning 2014)
Interesting facts: Born in Kranj, nowadays living in Škofja Loka. Since the beginning of his career, his coach has been Sebastian Piletič. In January 2018 FIG gave a name to an element “Bertoncelj” which made him the fourth Slovenian gymnast with his own element. He took part in the Slovenian MasterChef. He hasn’t missed any of the nine World Cups in Osijek.
Lee Chih Kai
Country: Chinese Taipei
Date of birth: 3 April 1996
Place of birth: Yilan
Height and weight: 170 cm, 65 kg
Disciplines: Floor, Pommel horse, Vault, Uneven bars
Greatest achievements: Winner of the Universiade in Taipei, 2017
Interesting facts: A new upcoming star of world gymnastics. There was a documentary movie „Jump boy” 15 years ago about a school gymnastics team in his birthplace of Yilan. From that gymnastics team, only Lee Chih Kai is a top gymnast who has taken part at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Audrys Nin Reyes
Country: Dominican Republic
Date of birth: 2 January 1995
Place of birth: Barahona
Height and weight: 167 cm, 62 kg
Disciplines: Floor, Pommel horse, Vault, Rings, Bars
Greatest achievements: Winner of World Cups in Paris (2017, Vault), Osijek (2017, Vault), Anadia (2015), Champion of South America in Vault and High bar (Lima 2017).
Interesting facts: Reyes is the first athlete who signed an agreement on getting a house with which the Dominican Republic ensures top athletes living conditions. Reyes has given away his house to his mother.
Dominick Cunningham
Country: UK
Date of birth: 9 May 1995
Place of birth: Birmingham
Disciplines: Floor, Vault
Greatest achievements: Gold medal at the Commonwealth Games (Gold Coast 2018) in the team competition and a bronze medal on the Vault on the Commonwealth Games, finalist of the European Championships in Floor and Vault (Cluj 2017)
Interesting facts: One of the members of the young British gymnasts. Since 2013 he has been attending the Bishop Challoner Catholic College in Birmingham which is specialized in educating athletes.
