Strictly Come Dancing 2012: Louis Smith

Age: 23

Twitter: @louissmith1989

Website: Louis-smith-official.com

Famous for: Winning Team GB a gymnastics silver and bronze at London 2012

Bio: Born in Peterborough in 1989, Louis was diagnosed with ADHD as a child. He chose to focus on gymnastics at the tender age of seven, learning to use the pommel horse (his chosen apparatus) by putting his feet in a bucket, tied to a rope and hung from the ceiling.

Smith went on to become European champion on the pommel horse in 2004 and 2006, before winning gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

But it was the 2008 Beijing Olympics that really put his name on the map after he took men’s pommel horse bronze, becoming the first British man to win a medal in individual Olympic gymnastics since 1908. Four years later in London he took the stage in front of a home crowd, contributing to a men’s Olympic team bronze medal and missing out on the pommel horse gold by a whisker to Hungarian Krisztian Berki.

But Smith’s talent aren’t confined to gymnastics – the budding singer turned down a childhood choral scholarship to pursue his gymnastics career and auditioned (albeit unsuccessfully) for The X Factor back in 2008. Now London 2012 is over, it’s time to see if those vocal abilities transfer to the dance floor…

During the London 2012 Olympics, Louis has become something of an advertiser's dream. See Louis in action in this Lucozade advert...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY2V-XwQ0tM

And this Adidas advert...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OXqkd8d7M

And having a little fun in another video for Adidas...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYtpL5YhWOQ