Valeri Belenki
Full name	Valeri Vladimirovich Belenki
Country represented	Germany
Former countries represented	Soviet Union  Azerbaijan
Born	(1969-09-05) 5 September 1969 (age 54) Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union
Discipline	Men's artistic gymnastics
Medal record Representing  Soviet Union World Championships 1989 Stuttgart Team 1991 Indianapolis Team 1991 Indianapolis Pommel Horse Representing  Unified Team Olympic Games 1992 Barcelona Team 1992 Barcelona All-around World Championships 1992 Paris Parallel bars Representing  Germany World Championships 1997 Lausanne Pommel horse 1993 Birmingham Parallel bars

Valeri Vladimirovich Belenki (Russian: Валерий Владимирович Беленький, German: Valeri Belenki; born 5 September 1969) is a retired Azerbaijani artistic gymnast who competed in the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics.

Career

Belenki was born and raised in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union (present day Azerbaijan), in a Jewish family.^[1]

He competed for the Soviet Union/Unified Team until 1992 when this federation was disbanded following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Belenki's greatest achievements are the team gold and all around bronze he won with the Unified Team in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Belenky also won gold in the pommel horse event at the 1991 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, where he competed for the USSR.

Because Azerbaijan did not have a gymnastics federation for him to compete for in the 1993 world championships in Birmingham, Belenky instead competed as an unattached athlete. In 1994 he became a German citizen and represented that nation in the 1996 Olympics, helping the team to a seventh-place finish and coming 6th in the all-around.

In 2013, he was elected to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.^[2] In 2015, he was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame as a representative of Azerbaijan.