Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos

ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS

As part of the partnership between LVMH and Paris 2024, LVMH is proud to support Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos. The 23-year-old gymnast is one of France’s most promising artistic gymnastics stars.

Bronze medalist in the all around team event this year at the World Championship in Antwerp, gold medalist in the floor exercise event at the 2018 European Championships in Glasgow, in the all around individual and floor events in Szczecin in 2019, and in the balance beam in Basel in 2021, Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos has won an international following with her talent, determination and resilience in a career marked by several injuries. Four-time European champion in artistic gymnastics, she now trains in the United States, determined to better her impressive sixth-place finish in the uneven bars at Tokyo in 2021.

Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos will represent Maison Christian Dior as ambassador for the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Inspired by the same values of audacity, creativity and excellence that define Christian Dior, Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos each day moves closer to her dream of winning an Olympic medal in Paris. LVMH and Dior are delighted to welcome Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos as Ambassador and Artisan of All Victories. This partnership builds on the active support that LVMH and its Maisons have for many years provided for high-level sports and the most prestigious international competitions. From the creation of numerous trophies to trunks designed specially to hold them, LVMH Maisons have long been partners to the world of sports, spanning a wide variety of disciplines, including tennis, rugby, basketball, football and automobile racing.

History

ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS

Gymnastics is an ancient sport, whose origins date back to Antiquity. At that time, it was recommended by philosophers as a means of promoting both physical and mental development. In the 19th century, gymnastics enjoyed a resurgence in popularity with the proliferation of competitions, and is now one of the disciplines at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Artistic gymnastics consists of individual apparatus events, as well as individual and team competitions encompassing all apparatus. Each apparatus requires specific skills. For men, these include floor exercises, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and high bar, while for women, they include vault, uneven bars, beam and floor exercises. These spectacular events demand strength, agility, coordination and speed from the athletes.

Until 2004, performances were graded on a ten-point scale. But starting in 2005, a new grading system was introduced, combining a difficulty grade (D) and an execution grade (E), to offer greater diversity in athlete grading. This reform was initiated after the 1976 Games, when Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first in history to achieve a perfect score of 10.