Nikita Nagornyy

Nikita Vladimirovich Nagornyy (, born 12 February 1997 in Rostov-on-Don, Rostov Oblast, Russia) is a Russian artistic gymnast and two-time Olympian, representing Russia in 2016 and ROC in 2020. He was part of the teams who won gold at the 2020 Olympic Games and 2019 World Championships and silver at the 2016 Olympic Games and 2018 World Championships.

Individually, Nagornyy is the 2019 World All-Around Champion and the 2020 Olympic and 2018 World All-Around bronze medalist. He is an eight-time European gold medalist and a three-time Youth Olympic champion.

Personal life Nagornyy has a YouTube account, and enjoys making YouTube vlogs in his free time. His grandmother is his inspiration. Tasked with disciplining him, she took him to a gymnastics club where one of her friends worked as a coach. Nagornyy has a Spanish language tattoo on his ribs reading salvame y guardame (save and protect me), a reference to a common Russian Orthodox phrase.

Activities for the Russian military In September 2016, Nagorny joined the National Guard of Russia. His favorite gymnasts are Alexei Nemov and Kohei Uchimura. He won gold in (rings, pommel horse, parallel bars), bronze medal in vault, 4th in floor exercise and 8th after a fall on horizontal bars. Nagornyy was the most decorated male artistic gymnast at this Youth Olympics Game with a total of three gold, one silver, and one bronze medal.

2015

Nagornyy's first year as a senior gymnast was 2015. At the 2015 Russian National Championships, his team finished in 4th, and he finished 5th in the all-around. In the event finals, he tied for gold with Denis Ablyazin on both floor and vault and won bronze on parallel bars and high bar. He was then selected to compete floor and vault at the 2015 European Championships.

Nagornyy qualified first for the vault final at the 2015 European Championships with a 15.050. However, he only finished 41st in the floor qualifications with a 14.100 due to a near-fall and several steps out of bounds. In the vault final, he won the European title with a 15.099. His teammate, Denis Ablyazin, was only 0.016 behind him.

At the 2015 World Championships in Glasgow Nagornyy competed floor and vault in the Team Final to contribute to the Russian Team's 4th-place finish.

2016 At the 2016 Russian National Championships Nagornyy's Team placed 3rd, winning the bronze medal. In the All Around Nagornyy was in 3rd place after the first day with a score of 89.033. On the second day he placed second with a score of 89.166 to give him a combined score of 178.199 which won him the silver medal behind Nikolai Kuksenkov and ahead of former National and European Champion David Belyavskiy. In event finals he won gold on floor ahead of 2014 World Champion Denis Ablyazin and also won silver medals on vault, rings and parallel bars.

Nagornyy was part of the Russia team for the 2016 European Championships. In qualifications he competed on every event except high bar, helping Russia to qualify in first place for the Team Final and qualifying to 3 Event Finals: Floor, Vault and Parallel Bars. In Team finals he again competed on 5 events, helping the team to win gold with a score of 271.378, nearly 3 points ahead of Great Britain. In Event Finals he became European Champion on Floor with a score of 15.566, also placing 6th in the Vault final with an average of 14.916 after a mistake on his second vault, and 7th in the Parallel Bars final with a score of 14.100 after a fall.

On August 6–16, Nagornyy competed with the Russian Team (together with Ivan Stretovich, Denis Ablyazin, Nikolai Kuksenkov and David Belyavskiy) at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he contributed scores of 15.000 in floor, 14.866 in rings, 15.400 vault; helping the Russian men's team win the silver medal with a total of 271.453 points. However, in late February Nagornyy and Lilia Akhaimova announced on Instagram that Russia withdrew from the upcoming competition due to the escalation of coronavirus worldwide. Nargornyy later was selected to compete at the Birmingham World Cup, which was then postponed.

2021

Nagornyy was scheduled to compete at the 2021 Russian Championships but withdrew because of a throat infection. He then started his International 2021 season at the 2021 European Championships. He qualified first to the All Around with a combined score of 87.097. He qualified to every apparatus final except horizontal bar, where he was the first reserve. Nagornyy debuted a new skill on floor; a triple back pike, which was then named after him in the Code of Points. The Nagornyy was the first skill graded with the highest I value (0.9).

At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo Nagornyy competed with the Russian Olympic Committee, a team including Denis Ablyazin, David Belyavskiy, and Artur Dalaloyan. Nagornyy helped the team qualify to the team final in third place and individually qualified to the all-around, floor exercise, vault, and horizontal bar event finals. During the team final Nagornyy competed on all six events and helped the team finish first with a combined score of 262.5. This was the first team Olympic gold medal for Russia in 25 years. During the all-around final Nagornyy won the bronze medal behind Hashimoto Daiki and Xiao Ruoteng. He qualified for the event finals for floor exercise, vault and horizontal bar. He finished seventh on floor, fifth on vault and won a bronze medal (his second individual medal and fourth overall) on the horizontal bar after scoring 14.533.

On 11 September, he along with his Olympic Team were awarded with Order of Friendship by President Vladimir Putin. In November Nagornyy competed at the Arthur Gander Memorial. He placed second in the four-event all-around after losing the tie-breaker to Yul Moldauer of the United States.

In May 2022, it was announced that Nagorny would join the Sakhalin Football Club as a player.

At the 2023 Russian Championships in Kazan, Nagorny sensationally lost in the all-around to Daniel Marinov, becoming the second. But Nikita still took two more gold medals in individual exercises. He became the best on the uneven bars and in the vault.

In June 2024, at the BRICS Games, he won gold in the vault and silver in floor exercises.

In October 2024, he initiated the creation of the Gymnastics Premier League in Russia.

Personal life and social activities Nagorny's grandfather played football for Rostselmash Rostov and the Armenian national team.

In 2018, Nikita Nagorny married Olympic medalist, world and European champion in artistic gymnastics Daria Spiridonova. On June 21, 2023, the couple had a son. In February 2026, Daria and Nikita announced they are currently expecting their second child, a girl.

In addition to their sports career, the couple are engaged in entrepreneurial activities. He is a soldier of the Russian National Guard. He holds the military rank of "Junior Lieutenant" (2016).

In December 2020, he became the head of the All-Russian Children's and Youth movement "Yunarmiya" (he was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Military Academy "Yunarmiya"). In 2022, he invited his fans to send gifts to help the Russian military personnel involved in the invasion of Ukraine.

In 2023, he joined the initiative group to nominate Vladimir Putin as a candidate for the presidential election in 2024. In 2024, he was a confidant of Russian presidential candidate Vladimir Putin.

In 2025, he became a participant in the second season of the show "Titans" on TNT, where his wife took part a year earlier.

Sanctions After the Russian invasion, the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption of Ukraine took the initiative to impose international sanctions against Nagorny for supporting the "aggressive policy of the Putin regime" and as involved in the propaganda of the war in Ukraine.

On September 22, 2023, Nagorny was included in Canada's sanctions list of "associates of the Russian regime and agents of disinformation" against those involved in the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and "the creation and dissemination of disinformation and propaganda funded by the Kremlin." On June 12, 2024, Nagorny was placed on the US blocking sanctions list against those responsible for the forced deportation, re-education and militarization of Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine. In November, he was included in the UK sanctions lists. In February 2025, he was also included in the sanctions list of the European Union. On April 18, it became known that he was included in the sanctions list of Ukraine for a period of 10 years.

Awards Medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 1st class (August 25, 2016) — for outstanding sporting achievements at the Games of the XXXI Olympic Games in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), for showing the will to win and determination. Order of Friendship (August 11, 2021) — for his great contribution to the development of domestic sports, high sporting achievements, the will to win, perseverance and determination shown at the Games of the XXXII Olympic Games 2020 (2021 due to the postponement due to COVID-19) in Tokyo (Japan). Honored Master of Sports of Russia (2016).

Competitive history