From diver Cassiel Rousseau to skier Sofia Goggia: How gymnastics is a base for many Olympic sports

We've all seen the viral clips of little kids emulating their favourite gymnasts competing at the Olympic Games, the too-big leotard hanging loose around the knees of a toddler, agog at what they are watching on the TV screen.

The one with the father helping his young child emulate London 2012 Olympic floor champion Aly Raisman, wearing a similar stars-and-stripes designed leotard with dad helping with the somersaults (thankfully on the soft cushioning of a bed), is adorable.

These kids might then have an opportunity to try gymnastics, but won't necessarily grow up to become an artistic, trampoline or rhythmic gymnast, the three Olympic disciplines.

However, the skills learned – balance, core strength, coordination, confidence, poise, aerial awareness and flexibility to name but a few – often transfer to many other sporting disciplines, including some surprising ones.

So, as the 2025 World Gymnastics Championships concludes, and the Trampoline Gymnastics World Championships is about to begin – from 6-9 November in Pamplona, Spain – we take a look at some winter and summer Olympians who have used their original gymnastics base to excel in another sport.

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Athletes from gymnastics backgrounds

Athletes who come from a background in gymnastics into sports that understandably have a synergy include Briton Molly Caudery, who incorporates training from the sport she gave up as a 10-year-old into her athletics routines for pole vault now.

The 2024 world indoor champion has posted reels on social media showing her using the parallel bars to help build upper body control and core strength.

Cassiel Rousseau, meanwhile, moved on from being a highly accomplished acrobatic gymnast, to a two-time world champion diver in the men's 10m platform.

A late starter to the diving scene, the Australian's gymnastics background aided his rapid ascent to a first world title, in the men's 10m platform in 2023, just seven years after his first coached diving session.

But the rigours of aiming for perfection in gymnastics, or indeed diving, is not for everyone.

For Canadian freeskier Megan Oldham gymnastics felt too regimented, and instead found her tribe amide the freestyle skiing scene.

"I remember the last year on the gymnastics team, it was this new structure where every athlete in the same level was doing the same song, the same routine, but just slightly different skills," Oldham told Olympics.com in March. "And I think that for me was a wake-up call. Like, 'This is really killing the fun for me!'"

Still, the background in learning aerial awareness and the thrill of flipping stick with Oldham, a slopestyle and big air specialist, and now a four-time world medallist and three-time X- Games champion.

"You go out, and every day, you're doing whatever you want," said Oldham, who made history at the 2023 X Games by becoming the first woman to successfully complete a triple cork in a ski or snowboard event. "You're learning the skills that you think are cool, adding grabs that you think make the trick look better. I fell in love with that portion of it, and just having my own expression when it came to doing a sport."

So these are the obvious sports that have gymnastics at their core, but what of the more unusual progressions?

Balance key in alpine skiing

Sofia Goggia is eyeing another foray onto the Olympic podium, as the two-time medallist starts the countdown to a home Games at Milano Cortina 2026, and gymnastics is part of her preparation during the off-season.

This may not be surprising for a freestyle skier, in aerials, slopestyle or big air, but is perhaps more puzzling as the Italian is an alpine skier.

The downhill champion from PyeongChang 2018, and silver medallist last time out at Beijing 2022 has been posting training reels from a gymnastics club in which she can be seen utilising the balance beam to, presumably, well, help with her balance.

When zipping down mountainsides at peak speeds of approximately 138km/h (86mph), weaving between gates, balance is one of the key elements required between getting safely down the hill and going all out.

So, jumping onto a beam from a springboard, landing on one leg into an immediate steady balance, or walking along the beam while swinging a heavy weight from side to side all make sense.

With Goggia aiming for a third Olympic medal in as many Games, incorporating gymnastics in her training routine clearly works for her.

Gymnastics background aids the most unusual of sports

England, Team GB, and Olympic footballer Leah Williamson was "forced into sport" at a young age after she had trouble walking as a youngster.

Her toes were pointed too far inwards, said the two-time European champion in a TikTok video for Shesaballer, so doctors suggested she take up gymnastics to see if it would correct her walking before they started looking at solutions such as braces.

Williamson then did gymnastics four days a week for seven years from the age of two, which did indeed correct how she walked, and also led her in to "a lifetime of sport".

Her head was turned by football, however, when the gymnastics coach would let the kids have a kickabout from time to time. Another aspect of gymnastics that would help Williamson in her career as a professional footballer for Arsenal and England – physical fitness.

"Every single time I walk into the gym at football and look up for my third set of chin-ups, which are so hard now, I think, 'Leah, you used to have to do 100 of these in 10 minutes, this is nothing," Williamson told The Guardian in 2023. "The foundation it gives you is like no other."

Ilenia Elisabetta Matonti no doubt agrees.

When the Italian performs an Ap-chagi on the Taekwondo matt, the front kick has more flexibility to it than most of her fellow fighters.

This Italian fighter started out life as a rhythmic gymnast, with those years of dedication to strength and flexibility now unleashed in a rather more aggressive manner than the leg looped around hoops and ribbons of her former life.

Meanwhile, Gabriela Mazetto has quite the reason to be grateful for the background in gymnastics as a youngster.

When a skate park was built next to her mum's house, the Brazilian swapped a leotard for a skateboard, but there was one particular move in gymnastics that helped her progress to Paris 2024 to achieve her dream of becoming an Olympian, something all of us learn, both inside and outside of sport.

Learning how to fall.

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