How Tall Are Male Gymnasts? Average Height of Olympic Champions

How Tall Are Male Gymnasts? Earlier, when we were writing the article on Phoenix Suns rookie Alex Len who apparently wanted to become a gymnast before he became a basketball player, we mentioned that tall guys can be gymnasts. We mentioned too the examples of Russell Czeschin and Jon-Michael Chombeau who were 6’3″ tall and yet were competitive in the United States.

A look at the heights of Olympic winning gymnasts, from the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games to the 2012 London Games, do tell us that the sport favors those who don’t go beyond six feet. Let’s take a look, shall we? [Note: Info source is wikipedia unless another source is cited.]

All-Around (individual) gold medal winners:
2000 Sydney, Alexei Nemov (RUS) – 173 centimetres (5 feet 8 inches)
2004 Athens, Paul Hamm (USA) – 163 centimetres (5 ft 4 in)
2008 Beijing, Yang Wei (CHN) – 160 centimetres (5 ft 3 in)
2012 London, Kōhei Uchimura (JPN) – 161 centimetres (5 ft 3.5 in)

male gymnast heigt - kohei uchimura japan

Trampoline gold medal winners:
2000 Sydney, Alexander Moskalenko (RUS) – We can’t find the info for his height. If you know, do share below.
2004 Athens, Yuri Nikitin (UKR) – 172 centimetres (5 ft 8 in)
2008 Beijing, Lu Chunlong (CHN) – 170 centimetres (5 ft 7 in)
2012 London, Dong Dong (CHN) – 167 centimetres (5 ft 6 in)

Vault gold medal winners:
2000 Sydney, Gervasio Deferr (ESP) – 166 cm (5 ft 5 in) – sportsreference.com
2004 Athens, Gervasio Deferr (ESP) – see above
2008 Beijing, Leszek Blanik (POL) – 163 cm (5 ft 4 in) – sportsreference.com
2012 London, Yang Hak-Seon (KOR) – 159 cm (5 ft 3 in)

male gymnast height - how tall - Yang Hak-seon

Rings gold medal winners:
2000 Sydney, Szilveszter Csollány (HUN) – 168 cm (5 ft 6 in) – sportsreference.com
2004 Athens, Dimosthenis Tampakos (GRE) – 163 cm (5 ft 4 in) – Yahoo Sports
2008 Beijing, Chen Yibing (CHN) – 160 cm (5 ft 3 in) – sportsreference.com
2012 London, Arthur Zanetti (BRA) – 156 cm (5 ft 1.4 in)

arthur zanetti - brazilian olympic medalist gold in rings

Pommel horse gold medal winners:
2000 Sydney, Marius Urzică (ROU) – 163 cm (5 ft 4 in) – romanian-gymnastics.com
2004 Athens, Teng Haibin (CHN) – 156 cm (5 ft 1.4 in) – china.org
2008 Beijing, Xiao Qin (CHN) – 164 cm (5 ft 5 in)
2012 London, Krisztián Berki (HUN) – 178 cm (5 ft 10 in) – You can read more about him in our previous post: Krisztián Berki: Shirtless Hungarian.

Parallel bars gold medal winners:
2000 Sydney, Li Xiaopeng (CHN) – 160 cm (5 ft 3 in)
2004 Athens, Valeri Goncharov (UKR) – 168 cm (5 ft 6 in) – sportcentric.com
2008 Beijing, Li Xiaopeng (CHN) – 160 cm (5 ft 3 in)
2012 London, Feng Zhe (CHN) – 160 cm (5 ft 3 in) – bbc.com

Horizontal bar gold medal winners:
2000 Sydney, Alexei Nemov (RUS) – 173 cm (5 ft 8 in)
2004 Athens, Igor Cassina (ITA) – 180 cm (5 ft 11 in)
2008 Beijing, Zou Kai (CHN) – 157 cm (5 ft 2 in)
2012 London, Epke Zonderland (NED) – 172 cm (5 ft 8 in)

Floor exercise gold medal winners:
2000 Sydney, Igors Vihrovs (LAT) – 165 cm (5 ft 5 in)
2004 Athens, Kyle Shewfelt (CAN) – 165 cm (5 ft 5 in)
2008 Beijing, Zou Kai (CHN) – 157 cm (5 ft 2 in)
2012 London, Zou Kai (CHN) – 157 cm (5 ft 2 in)

So what do we get from the above? Well, we get the info that the tallest male gymnast to win a gold medal since the 2000 Athens Olympic games is Italy’s Igor Cassina who stands at 180 cm (5 feet and 11 inches). Meanwhile, the shortest gold medal winners during the same period are Brazil’s Arthur Zanetti and China’s Teng Haibin who both stand at 156 cm (5 ft 1.4 in).

The average height for the above 29 Olympic gold medalists (we didn’t include trampolinist Alexander Moskalenko because we don’t have his stat) is 165 cm or 5 feet and 5 inches.

So there GymnastWatchers, now you know the answer when someone asks you the “how tall are male gymnasts?” question!