Félix Dolci

Félix Dolci (born 5 May 2002) is a Canadian male artistic gymnast.

He is the 2023 Pan American Games all-around and floor exercise champion and the 2019 Junior World Champion on rings.

Dolci was born in Saint-Eustache, Québec in 2002.

He started gymnastics at the age of 6 at Laval Excellence, a gym in Laval, Québec.

His first competition was in 2009 and, up to this day, has won over 200 medals and awards, including sports merits and other honours.

His mother suggested he try gymnastics, mainly as a way to release his energy, as sports such as hockey and soccer failed to adequately do that.

Dolci speaks both French and English as he resides in the province of Québec.

Dolci is coached by Adrian Balan.

He has been a member of the Canadian national team since 2017.

Dolci suffered a shoulder injury at the start of 2018 which made it difficult to do horizontal bar, pommel horse, and parallel bars.

Because of this, he was not able to compete his best at the Élite Canada competition in February and ended up in fourth place in the all-around.

Dolci recovered and in April he competed at the Pacific Rim Championships in Medellin, Colombia.

He helped Canada place second as a team and individually he placed second on rings, fourth on parallel bars, and eighth on horizontal bar.

He next competed at the Canadian Championships held in Waterloo, Ontario and placed first on all-around, floor, vault, and horizontal bar; second on rings; third on parallel bars; and fourth on pommel horse.

Dolci's second international competition of the year came in June at the Junior Pan American Gymnastics Championships in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

While there he helped Canada win bronze as a team.

Individually he won gold on rings and bronze in the all-around, on floor exercise, and on horizontal bar.

In October Dolci was back in Buenos Aires for the Youth Olympic Games.

He placed second on rings, sixth on floor exercise, seventh on vault, eighth on horizontal bar, and ninth in the all-around.

His silver made him the first Canadian gymnast to win a medal at the Youth Olympics (alongside Emma Spence who won a bronze medal on vault).

He rounded out the year with the Austrian Future Cup in Linz, Austria in November.

He dominated the competition, placing first on every event (including team and all-around) minus the horizontal bar where he received the bronze medal.

Dolci started 2019 off in February with the Canada Games in Red Deer, Alberta.

Competing in the junior competition, he won gold in all-around, high bar, vault, and floor; silver on rings and as part of the Québec team; and finished in 8th on pommel horse.

This achievement made him the most decorated athlete in the Canada winter games history for a single year.

Dolci then went to University of Calgary International Cup (UCIC) in Calgary, Alberta in March.

He placed 1st on pommel horse, rings, and parallel bars, and got 6th on high bar.

In May, he went to the Canadian Championships in Ottawa, Ontario.

There he received the gold medal in all events excluding vault and pommel horse where he placed 2nd and 4th, respectively.

At the end of June Dolci went to Győr, Hungary to compete at the inaugural Junior World Championships.

Along with Ioannis Chronopoulos and Evgeny Siminiuc, Dolci helped Canada place fifth as a team with a combined total of 158.563.

Additionally he placed fourth in the all-around behind Shinnosuke Oka, Ryosuke Doi, and Illia Kovtun.

Dolci qualified for two event finals: floor exericse (in third) and rings (in second).

Dolci finished second in the floor exercise final with a 14.000, only 0.166 behind Ryu Sung-hyun of South Korea.

Later that day he competed in the rings final and earned a 13.600, winning the event by 0.1 ahead of silver medalist Diogo Soares of Brazil.

In both of the finals that Dolci was part of, he had the highest execution scores out of all of the 8 gymnasts part of the final.

In 2020 Dolci was about to start his senior career.

However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, all gymnastics facilities where closed in Canada.

As a result he had to spend four months training at home.

Due to strict travel restrictions, Dolci was not allowed to compete in any international competition until the 2021 FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup series.