who is the youngest olympian

The youngest Olympian in modern Olympic history is Greek gymnast Dimitrios Loundras, who competed at the 1896 Athens Games at just 10 years and 216 days old and even won a bronze medal in the team event.

Quick Scoop: Who is the youngest Olympian?

When people ask who is the youngest Olympian , they’re almost always talking about the modern Olympic Games (from 1896 onward). In that era, the record belongs to Dimitrios Loundras.

• Name: Dimitrios Loundras
• Country: Greece
• Sport: Artistic gymnastics
• Olympics: Athens 1896
• Age: 10 years, 216 days at the time of competition
• Achievement: Bronze medal in the team parallel bars event, making him also the youngest Olympic medalist on record.

Some historians note that there may have been an even younger, unidentified boy who served as a coxswain in rowing at the 1900 Paris Olympics, but because his exact age is unknown, the official record still credits Loundras as the youngest documented Olympian.

Other very young Olympians (context)

While Loundras holds the overall record, a few other names often come up when people search “who is the youngest Olympian”:

• Luigina Giavotti (Italy, gymnastics): Competed in 1928 at 11 years and 301 days, and is recognized as the youngest female Olympian.

• Hend Zaza (Syria, table tennis): Qualified for Tokyo 2020 at age 12, the youngest Olympian in more than 50 years.

• Kokona Hiraki (Japan, skateboarding): Competed in Tokyo 2020 at 12 years and 243 days and won silver in women’s park, making her one of the youngest medalists since the 1930s.

These cases show why this question keeps trending around each Olympic cycle: age-limit rules have tightened over time in many sports, so seeing pre-teens on the Olympic stage has become much rarer than it was in the early 1900s.

Mini FAQ and “latest news” angle

• Is there anyone younger than 10 on record?
  • Officially no; the 10‑year‑old Dimitrios Loundras is the youngest documented Olympian.

• Does this change with each new Olympics?
  • The overall youngest Olympian record from 1896 is very unlikely to be broken today because most sports now impose minimum age limits, often 15–16 or higher.

• Why do people still ask “who is the youngest Olympian” every cycle?
  • New very young stars (like Hend Zaza or teenage skateboarders at Tokyo and Paris) trigger fresh discussion, but they’re still older than Loundras was.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.