2012 London Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
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 was the first 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. His team-mate Max Whitlock subsequently won Olympic medals in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 games, and also won successively bronze, gold and gold in these games on pommel horse. A 2006
Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...
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'' and the 2021 series of '' The Masked Dancer''.
Early life
Smith was born in
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
to his English mother, Elaine, who separated from his
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
n-born father, Claude, when he was three. He was diagnosed with
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by excessive amounts of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that are pervasive, impairing in multiple contexts, and otherwise age-inap ...
in 1995 and was on Ritalin from when he was six until he was eleven.
Smith attended Arthur Mellows Village College in Glinton, Cambridgeshire. He 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".
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
Prashanth Sellathurai (born 1 October 1986) is an Australian gymnast.2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
The 40th World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were held at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle
Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle (sometimes shortened to Schleyer-Halle) is an indoor arena located in Stuttgart, Germany. The capacity of the arena is nea ...
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
Jair Lynch (born October 2, 1971) is an American gymnastics, gymnast and real estate developer in Washington, D.C., in the United States. He won a silver medal in the parallel bars at the 1996 Summer Olympics. After leaving competitive gymnastic ...
of the United States in 1996, a silver medalist on the
parallel bars
Parallel bars are floor apparatus consisting of two wooden bars slightly over long and positioned at roughly head height. Parallel bars are used in artistic gymnastics and also for physical therapy and home exercise. Gymnasts may optionally we ...
.
2009–15
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
Prashanth Sellathurai (born 1 October 1986) is an Australian gymnast.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
Krisztián Berki (; born 18 March 1985 in Budapest) is a Hungarian artistic gymnast. He is a pommel horse specialist. In 2016 a pommel horse element of difficulty level 'E' was named after him.
Sports career
He is the 2012 Olympic Champion, ...
. 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
Krisztián Berki (; born 18 March 1985 in Budapest) is a Hungarian artistic gymnast. He is a pommel horse specialist. In 2016 a pommel horse element of difficulty level 'E' was named after him.
Sports career
He is the 2012 Olympic Champion, ...
and
Cyril Tommasone
Cyril Tommasone (born 4 July 1987 in Villeurbanne) is a French artistic gymnast.
His strongest apparatus is the pommel horse and parallel bars. He is tall and weighs .
Career
He started gymnastics at age 7 and trains at the Convention Gymniqu ...
to win the bronze medal — the only medal won by the British men and women at those championships.
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
Krisztián Berki (; born 18 March 1985 in Budapest) is a Hungarian artistic gymnast. He is a pommel horse specialist. In 2016 a pommel horse element of difficulty level 'E' was named after him.
Sports career
He is the 2012 Olympic Champion, ...
; 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 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.
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
. He finished second in the pommel horse final behind teammate Max Whitlock.
Other ventures
In an attempt to revive his interest in singing, Smith auditioned unsuccessfully for the British television music competition ''
The X Factor
''The X Factor'' is a television music competition franchise created by British producer Simon Cowell and his company Syco Entertainment. It originated in the United Kingdom, where it was devised as a replacement for '' Pop Idol'' (2001–2003 ...
'' in 2008. In 2018, he appeared at the
London Palladium
The London Palladium () is a Grade II* West End theatre located on Argyll Street, London, in the famous area of Soho. The theatre holds 2,286 seats. Of the roster of stars who have played there, many have televised performances. Between 1955 a ...
in the show ''Rip it Up the 60s'', alongside
Harry Judd
Harry Mark Christopher Judd (born 23 December 1985) is an English musician, dancer and author. He is the drummer for the band McFly. Judd won the 2011 series of ''Strictly Come Dancing''.
Judd published his first book, ''Get Fit Get Happy'', in ...
,
Jay McGuiness
James "Jay" McGuiness (born 24 July 1990) is a British singer, songwriter and actor best known as a vocalist with boy band The Wanted. In 2015, partnered with Aliona Vilani, he won the 13th series of BBC's ''Strictly Come Dancing''.
In recen ...
and Aston Merrygold. In 2019, he starred in the 70s adaption of the show. He finished as runner-up on the 2017 edition of The Jump.
In 2021, Smith appeared on '' The Masked Dancer'', masked as "The Carwash". He was crowned the first ever winner of the series on 5 June 2021.
''Strictly Come Dancing''
Smith took part in the 2012 series of the British television show '' Strictly Come Dancing''; his professional partner was
Flavia Cacace
Flavia Cacace-Mistry born 1980 is an Italian British professional dancer. Her professional dance partner is Vincent Simone (they are branded when performing together as 'Vincent and Flavia'), and for ten years both partners appeared on the BBC's ...
. 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
Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...
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
Christmas themes have long been an inspiration to artists and writers. A prominent aspect of Christian media, the topic first appeared in in literature and Christmas music. Filmmakers have picked up on this wealth of material, with both adaptatio ...
with professional, Aliona Vilani. The couple won after dancing a quickstep that scored a perfect 10 from all judges.
Controversy
In 2016, Smith issued an apology and visited Fazl Mosque, London, after a video leaked of him mocking the salah.
Personal life
In November 2017, Louis began dating Charlie Bruce, a British jazz dancer from Leicestershire. In September 2020, the couple announced that they were expecting their first child together, with the due date being announced as late February 2021.
Smith was appointed
Member of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(MBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to gymnastics.