It goes without saying that gymnastics fans adore the athletes who compete at the highest level in the sport. In any given decade women’s gymnastics produces easily 100+ gymnasts who rise to the status of a “fan favorite.” Gymnastics fans not only follow the career of these gymnasts with great interest, but keep tabs on them even as they embark on the next chapter in their lives.

With so many fan favorites in the sport, it is expected that in any given year we will see a large number of weddings and engagement announcements. But in 2022 the trend feels a little different. So many fan favorites have either gotten engaged or celebrated their wedding day in the past few months that it is hard to keep track of them all. In just the last week alone Catalina Ponor, Viktoria Komova, and Aleksandra Shchekoldina all celebrated their weddings.

Viktoria Komova’s wedding photo:

Aleksandra Shchekoldina’s wedding photo:

In the case of Catalina Ponor’s wedding, it was an event loaded with the presence of Romanian gymnastics royalty. Among the guests, Andreea Raducan, Corina Ungureanu, Daniela Silivas and Monica Rosu who all have multiple gold medals to their name. There was also Romania’s well known coaching duo, Octavian Bellu and Mariana Bitang who were present as well.

Catalina Ponor’s wedding also produced this photo of Andreea Raducan that was too adorable not to share.

Silivas used Catalina’s wedding as an opportunity to recreate a historic photo.

As for the bride and groom:

There was also an engagement announcement in late May from Sydney Johnson-Scharpf:

In late April Russian gymnast Seda Tutkhalyan got engaged:

Earlier in the year gymnastics saw engagement announcements from not one, but two Olympic All-Around Champions. The first was 2016 Olympic Champion Simone Biles.

The second was 1992 Olympic Champion Tatiana Gutsu:

To quote Tatiana: “It’s a beautiful feelings to be in love and being loved.”

It should also be noted that both Gutsu and Ponor were members of the 2022 Hall of Fame class. Gutsu announced her engagement roughly ten days after it was officially announced she was being elevated to the Hall of Fame. Meanwhile Ponor’s wedding came just two weeks after her official Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

In January Camelia Voinea celebrated her wedding. She is best known for being an Olympic medalist from the 1988 Olympics and a member of the iconic 1987 Romanian gold medal winning World Championships team.

But Camelia Voinea has more recently been making gymnastics headlines due to her daughter, Sabrina Voinea who is a highly renowned junior that will be eligible to compete as a senior in 2023. This is also a big event in Sabrina’s life as well and the three of them make a great family.

Lastly, and this is part of a throwback to an article I wrote six months ago, but Diana Varinska and Milad Karimi got engaged in December of 2021. They have not celebrated their wedding yet with the Russian invasion of Ukraine likely putting those plans on hold. I just wanted to acknowledge this particular example because they are two gymnasts who have had to deal with a war putting their aspirations on hold.