| Louis Smith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Louis Antoine Smith | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country represented | United Kingdom England |
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| Born | 22 April 1989 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hometown | Peterborough | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 179 centimetres (5 ft 10 in)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Discipline | Men's artistic gymnastics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Huntingdon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Head coach(es) | Paul Hall | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Louis Antoine Smith (born 22 April 1989 in Peterborough, England) is an English artistic gymnast from Eye near Peterborough. He is a member of the Huntingdon Gymnastics club, training alongside teammate Daniel Keatings under coach, Paul Hall.
His strongest event is the pommel horse, in which he has been a 2-time European Silver medallist and Commonwealth Games Champion. He represented Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics.[2]
In 2010 Louis joined Lucozade Sport as an Ambassador.
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As a Junior he was a two-time European Champion on Pommel Horse, winning the title in both 2004 and 2006. In 2006 he took 5th place in the World Cup final.
He won Gold on Pommel Horse for England at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia beating Prashanth Sellathurai.
In 2007 he came 4th in the Pommel Horse final at the European Championships. He attended his first World Championships competing for Great Britain at the 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. There he won a Bronze medal in the Pommel Horse final. He also won a Silver on the pommel horse at the World Cup in Ghent the same year.
In 2008 he won a Silver on Pommel Horse again at the World Cup in Moscow.
On 9 August 2008 he qualified in 5th place for the Olympic final of the men's pommel horse, and on 17 August he won a bronze medal in the finals, becoming the first in Britain to win a medal in the individual gymnastics at the Olympic Games since Walter Tysall won a silver medal in 1908 and the first Briton to win a medal in gymnastics at the Olympic Games since the women's team won a bronze medal in 1928.[3] He is also the second black male gymnast to win a medal in an Olympic competition. The first was Jair Lynch of the United States in 1996, a silver medalist on the parallel bars.
In 2009 he won his first silver medal at the European Championships on the Pommel Horse as a Senior.
In 2010 he helped the British men's team to win Silver at the European Championships, and once again took the Silver medal in the Pommel Horse. He went on to the 2010 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam where he beat Prashanth Sellathurai once again to take the Silver medal.
In 2011, he made the Pommel Horse finals but did not perform at his best and finished in 6th at the European Championships in Berlin [4]. In October, he was chosen to be on the British team for the 2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Tokyo. The men's team were expected to qualify through to the team finals easily, but had a poor performance in the preliminary rounds[5]. Louis was only chosen to perform on Pommel Horse where he performed well, qualifying through to the Pommel Horse finals ranking 2nd behind the 2010 World Champion, Krisztian Berki. On October 14th, he performed the most difficult routine out of all the finalists, but fell on his dismount, lowering his execution score. Despite this, he still placed 3rd behind [[Krisztian Berki] and Cyril Tommasone to win the Bronze medal - the only medal won by the British men and women at that championships[6].
Louis went to school at Arthur Mellows Village College in Glinton near Peterborough.