Denis Ablyazin

Denis Mikhailovich Ablyazin (Денис Михайлович Аблязин, born 3 August 1992) is a Russian artistic gymnast.

Ablyazin was born on 3 August 1992 in Penza, Russia.

He represents Russia.

He was the first gymnast to win four gold medals in a single European Championships since Marian Drăgulescu in 2004.

At the 2012 London Olympics he won silver in vault and bronze in floor.

In May, Ablyazin was selected, alongside Emin Garibov, David Belyavskiy, Anton Golotsutskov and Aleksandr Balandin to represent Russia at the 2012 European Championships in Montpellier, France.

He contributed scores of a 15.266 on floor, 15.241 on rings and 16.066 on vault toward Russia's second-place finish.

He won two bronze medals in the rings and vault finals, scoring a 15.433 on rings and 16.062 on vault.

Ablyazin competed for the national team at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the men's artistic team all-around.

He was the only Russian male artistic gymnast to win two medals, a bronze on floor and a silver on vault behind Yang Hak-seon of South Korea, at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

On the floor, his score tied him for the second-highest score of the night with Kohei Uchimura of Japan and only Zou Kai of China had surpassed him.

However, after applying tie breaking rules in gymnastics for the Olympics, Uchimura ended up with the silver and relegated Ablyazin to the bronze.

With a D-score of 7.1 on floor, he also executed the most difficult routine during the event final with an extra pass and barely finished his routine in time, right at the sound of the final warning bell indicating his time was over.

In March, Ablyazin competed at the World Cup, which was held in France, where he won gold on rings and placed second on floor.

He is also three-time European vault champion (2013, 2014 and 2019), the 2014 European champion on floor and rings and the 2014 World Champion on floor.

In April, he won the gold medal in the vault final at the 2013 European Championships in Moscow, Russia, scoring 15.408.

In July, Ablyazin, alongside the Russian team (Nikolai Kuksenkov, Emin Garibov, David Belyavskiy and Nikita Ignatyev) competed at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia, where they won the gold medal, ahead of Ukraine and Japan.

In the event finals, he placed second both on rings and vault.

In September, Ablyazin competed at the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, but failed to qualify for any event finals.

There was no team event in 2013 as is customary at worlds held immediately after an Olympic year.

At the start of the season, Ablyazin competed at the World Cup in Cottbus, Germany and placed first in the rings and floor finals.

In May, he and his teammates (Nikolai Kuksenkov, Aleksandr Balandin, Nikita Ignatyev, David Belyavskiy), competed at the 2014 European Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Ablyazin contributed scores of 15.833 on floor, 15.500 on rings and 15.366 on vault towards Russia's gold with a total score of 267.959, ahead of Great Britain.

Ablyazin placed first in all individual finals he qualified for, winning gold on floor with a score of 15.700, and scoring 15.800 (tied with teammate Aleksandr Balandin) on rings with a total of 15.150 on vault.

Ablyazin won a total of four gold medals making him the most successful gymnast in the entire 2014 European Championships.

In October, Ablyazin competed at the 2014 World Championships in Nanning, China and helped the Russian team to a fifth-place finish.

At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, he won silver with the Russian men's team, a silver in vault and bronze in rings.

In September 2016, Ablyazin married Ksenia Semyonova, a Russian former gymnast who won two world titles.

On January 21, 2017, their son, Yaroslav Ablyazin, was born.

Denis and Ksenia separated in 2018 and later divorced, with Semyonova taking full custody of their son.

Ablyazin remarried in 2021.

After trying multiple sports as a child, Ablyazin finally chose artistic gymnastics, the sport he excelled in the most.

The sport truly appealed to him after he brought home a gold medal from a youth version of the sports festival, Spartakiad, hosted by his primary school in Chelyabinsk, Russia.

In March, Ablyazin competed at Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Cottbus, Germany.

In the event finals he placed fourth on floor with a score of 14.925 and third on vault with a score of 16.050.

In April, he competed at the European Championships in Berlin, Germany, where he finished sixth in the floor exercise final, scoring 15.250.

In October, Ablyazin competed at the World Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

He contributed scores of a 15.033 on floor, 15.000 on rings and 16.266 on vault toward the Russian team's fourth-place finish.

Individually, he placed fifth in the vault final with a score of 16.174, after qualifying in ninth place and being brought in as a reserve when Marian Drăgulescu of Romania withdrew from the competition due to injury.

Ablyazin is Olympic Champion 2020 in Tokyo and a seven-time Olympic Games medalist.