Angelina Melnikova

Angelina Romanovna Melnikova (Ангели́на Рома́новна Ме́льникова; born 18 July 2000) is a Russian artistic gymnast.

With eleven Olympic and World medals, she is the joint third-most decorated Russian gymnast of all time.

Angelina Romanovna Melnikova was born 18 July 2000 in Voronezh, Russia.

She has a younger brother named Oleg.

She started gymnastics at age six after her grandmother brought her to practice once.

When she was thirteen, she moved to Moscow to train at the Round Lake national training center.

She studied sport and tourism at the Smolensk State Academy of Physical Education.

She speaks English and is also studying Italian.

Individually, she scored the second-highest all-around score behind 2012 Olympian and reigning European champion Giulia Steingruber of Switzerland.

At the junior level, Melnikova won gold medals at the 2014 European Championships in the team, all-around, and balance beam events and was the 2014 Russian junior all-around national champion.

Melnikova was added to Russia's junior national team in 2014 and made her international debut at the International Gymnix competition in Montreal.

She won the team gold medal alongside Anastasia Ilyankova, Daria Skrypnik, and Ekaterina Sokova, and individually, she won the all-around silver medal in the Junior International Cup behind Canadian Rose-Kaying Woo.

She also placed second on uneven bars and third on floor exercise.

In April, Melnikova competed at the Russian Championships with her home team, the Central Federal District.

Her team placed first with a combined total score of 267.966.

Individually, Melnikova had a strong showing and placed first in the Junior Master of the Sport division with a score of 58.300.

She also won two other gold medals on balance beam and floor exercise with scores of 14.700 and 14.167 respectively.

She competed in the uneven bars final and placed seventh.

At the European Championships, Melnikova competed in the junior division alongside teammates Maria Bondareva, Daria Skrypnik, Seda Tutkhalyan, and Anastasia Dmitrieva.

As a team, they placed first with a combined score of 168.268.

Melnikova then went on to win a gold medal in the all-around and on the balance beam and a silver medal on the uneven bars behind teammate Skrypnik.

She then competed at the Top Gym Tournament in Charleroi and won gold in the all-around, vault, and uneven bars finals.

Melnikova competed at the Junior Russian Championships in Penza in early April.

She finished in first place with her team, then went on to take the silver in the all-around, fifth on uneven bars, first on balance beam, and second on floor exercise.

In September, she performed at the Russian Cup; she was ineligible to compete due to her junior status but she was able to perform as a guest.

Her overall score of 57.234 was the highest of the competition, beating official champion Daria Spiridonova's score of 57.100.

Melnikova competed at the Elite Gym Massilia meet in Marseille, France in November.

She, alongside teammates Daria Skrypnik, Evgeniya Shelgunova, and Natalia Kapitonova, won the silver medal in the team competition.

Individually, she won the all-around title ahead of France's Marine Brevet and Romania's Diana Bulimar.

Then at the Voronin Cup, she won a silver medal with teammate Maria Kharenkova, and she finished second in the junior all-around behind Kapitonova.

She won gold in both the vault and floor exercise event finals.

She previously represented Russia at the 2016 Summer Olympics, winning a silver medal in the team competition.

She was also a member of the gold medal-winning Russian teams at the 2016 and 2018 European Championships, and the silver medal-winning Russian teams at the 2018 and 2019 World Championships.

Individually Melnikova is a two-time Olympic medalist, five-time World medalist, a nine-time European Championships medalist, a four-time European Games medalist, and a two-time Russian national all-around champion (2016, 2018).

Melnikova became age-eligible for senior competition in 2016 and made her senior international debut at the DTB Pokal Team Challenge Cup where the Russian team won the gold medal.

She has been captain of the Russian women's national gymnastics team since 2017.

She is also the 2019 European Games all-around and uneven bars champion, the 2017 European champion on floor, and the 2021 European champion on uneven bars.

In winning the 2021 World all-around title, she became the first non-American to win a World or Olympic all-around title in over a decade.

At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics she led the Russian Olympic Committee to gold in the team competition.

She is the 2020 Olympic all-around and floor bronze medalist, the 2021 World all-around champion, floor silver medalist, and vault bronze medalist, and the 2019 World all-around and floor bronze medalist.