Louis Antoine Smith, MBE 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 fell just short of gold in 2012, tying with Kristian Berki, but taking silver for a lower E or execution score. He followed this up with a second consecutive silver medal on the pommel horse at the 2016 Rio Olympics, this time finishing behind teammate, and 2012 bronze medalist, Max Whitlock. Smith was also part of the Great Britain team that took the bronze in the men's artistic team all-around at the 2012 London Olympics. He is the only British gymnast to win Olympic medals in three separate Games, and only the second gymnast after Marius Urzică to win three successive Olympic pommel horse medals. A 2006 Commonwealth Games champion representing England in the pommel horse, in 2015 he became European champion, his first major international title representing Great Britain. Smith is a member of the Huntingdon Gymnastics Club, training alongside teammate Daniel Keatings under coach Paul Hall. He was a part of the European Gold medal winning Great Britain's men's team in 2012, 2010 Commonwealth Games Champion, and is also a four-time European Silver medallist. Away from the gym, Smith's media profile has offered a number of television opportunities in his home country. He also won the 2012 series of Strictly Come Dancing.
Personal life
Smith was born in Peterborough to his English mother, Elaine, who separated from his Jamaican-born father, Claude, when he was three. He was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in 1995 and was on Ritalin from when he was six until he was eleven. His mother commented that it was a case of his "running around the house and climbing everywhere or going somewhere more structured." His local friends included Aston Merrygold, later a member of boy band JLS. When he was seven, Smith was offered a choral scholarship, but instead chose to focus on gymnastics. He first learned to use the pommel by putting his feet in a bucket that was tied to a rope and hung from a ceiling. He attended Arthur Mellows Village College in Glinton, Cambridgeshire. Smith has since described his childhood, saying that "My mum took me to a variety of sports but from a young age it was gymnastics that captured my attention and which I really wanted to progress in. I had to sacrifice a lot of things in my social life, and I also didn't do A-Levels as I wanted to focus on the sport". In 2016, Smith issued an apology and visited London's first mosque, after a video leaked of him mocking the salah.
Career
2004–08: before Beijing
As a junior, Smith was twice a European Champion on Pommel Horse, winning the title in 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 fourth 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, Smith won a silver on Pommel Horse at the World Cup in Moscow.
2008 Summer Olympics
On 9 August 2008, Smith qualified in fifth place for the Olympic final of the men's pommel horse, and on 17 August he won a bronze medal in the finals, becoming first British man 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 generally to win a medal in gymnastics at the Olympic Games since the women's team won a bronze medal in 1928. 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.
2009–11
In 2009, he won his first silver medal at the European Championships on the Pommel Horse as a Senior. In 2010, Smith 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. 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. 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, Krisztián Berki. On 14 October, 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 Krisztián Berki and Cyril Tommasone to win the Bronze medal — the only medal won by the British men and women at those championships.
2012
In 2012, Smith won the silver medal in the pommel horse finals in the European Men's Artistic Gymnastics Championships. Smith was part of the Great Britain team at the London Olympics. The team won a bronze medal at the men's artistic team all-around event on 30 July 2012, marking the first team medal for a British Olympic gymnastics team in 100 years. Smith also won the silver medal in the men's pommel horse final, receiving the same score as Hungary's Krisztián Berki; Berki, however, was awarded the gold medal due to having a higher execution score. This was especially crushing to the home nation as this could have been Great Britain's first ever Olympic gold medal in gymnastics but Smith said 'I set out to do the best routine of my life and I achieved it so I have to be satisfied'.
Smith was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to gymnastics. Smith retired in 2013 and didn't compete that year, but announced in early January 2014 that he was back in the gym training in a bid to return to International competition at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. Smith won Bronze in the pommel horse finals at the 2014 Commonwealth Games behind his British teammates Daniel Keatings, who was competing for Scotland and Max Whitlock. In 2015 he gained a berth to the British team competing at the 2015 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Montpelier, France. On Saturday 18 April he won the Gold medal on Pommel Horse - his first individual European title - with a score of 15.800.
In an attempt to revive his interest in singing, Smith auditioned unsuccessfully for the British television music competition The X Factor in 2008. Smith has disclosed that he now only sings at the gym.
''Strictly Come Dancing''
Smith took part in the 2012 series of the British television showStrictly Come Dancing; his professional partner was Flavia Cacace. From weeks 1–8, his performances received mixed to positive reviews from the judges, until weeks 9–12 when the reviews became more positive and landed him in the top half of the leaderboard. He came top of the leaderboard for the first time in the Halloween week with his tango and then again in week 9 with his Charleston, but his best and perfect score came in the grand final with his Showdance, for which he scored a perfect 40. Smith and Cacace were announced as the winners of the series in the grand final. Smith said "It was brilliant. The training was harder than gymnastics as everything was a new challenge. I never expected to win – I just went out every week with the aim of doing my best." Smith subsequently participated in the 2014 Christmas special with professional, Aliona Vilani. The couple won after dancing a quickstep that scored a perfect 10 from all judges.
