Donnell Whittenburg

Donnell Whittenburg is an American artistic gymnast. He is the 2025 World Champion on rings and is a member of the United States men's national artistic gymnastics team.

Early life and education

Whittenburg was born on August 18, 1994, in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Edgewood High School and later a local community college and DeVry University. He was coached as a youth by Abdul Mammeri. He decided to pursue gymnastics and moved to Colorado to attend the United States Olympic Training Center under Vitaly Marinich.

Whittenburg's strongest events are rings, vault, and floor.

Whittenburg was the 2014 U.S. national champion on vault and silver medalist on rings. He won a bronze medal with the team at the 2014 World Championships.
Whittenburg competed at the 2015 Pan American Games where he won gold with the team. Individually he won silver on floor exericse, rings, and vault. The following month he competed at the 2015 National Championships where he won the national title on rings. At the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, Whittenburg won his first individual World Championships medal, a bronze on vault, with an average combined score of 15.350 behind Ri Se Gwang of North Korea and Marian Drăgulescu of Romania. He also qualified for the still rings final but finished eighth with a score of 15.300.
At the 2016 American Cup Whittenburg placed second behind Ryōhei Katō. He retained his national title on rings at the 2016 National Championships. At the 2016 [United States Olympic trials (gymnastics)|2016 Olympic trials] he placed second on rings and vault and third on parallel bars and horizontal bar. Whittenburg was named as an alternate for the 2016 Olympic team.

Whittenburg won silver at the 2017 FIG Artistic Gymnastics [World Cup Series|2017 London World Cup] behind Oleg Verniaiev. At the 2017 Koper World Challenge Cup he won gold on parallel bars and silver on floor exercise and vault. At the 2017 World Championships he placed sixth on floor exercise.
At the 2021 Pan American Championships Whittenburg won a silver medal with the team. He competed at the postponed 2020 Olympic trials but was ultimately not named to the Olympic team. Whittenburg competed at the 2021 World Championships but did not qualify to any event finals.

In 2022, Whittenburg placed second at the United States National Championships behind Brody Malone, scoring highest on rings and second highest on vault. At the 2022 Paris World Challenge Cup, he won a bronze medal on parallel bars and rings. He competed at the 2022 World Championships where he helped the United States finish fifth. Individually he finished eighth on rings.
Whittenburg competed at the 2023 Pan American Games where he helped the United States win team gold. Individually he won gold on rings and bronze in the all-around behind Félix Dolci and Diogo Soares.
In 2024, Whittenburg placed seventh in the all-around at the 2024 U.S. National Gymnastics Championships and 2024 United States Olympic trials and was named as a non-traveling replacement athlete for the 2024 Olympic team.

Whittenburg changed gyms to EVO Gymnastics in 2025 and was a member of their delegation at the 2025 U.S. National Gymnastics Championships. There he won bronze on rings and parallel bars. After the competition, he was selected to compete at the 2025 World Championships alongside Brandon Dang, Asher Hong, Patrick Hoopes, Brody Malone, and Kameron Nelson.
At the World Championships, Whittenburg qualified for the rings and parallel bars finals. During the rings final, Whittenburg won gold ahead of 2022 World Champion Adem Asil and 2021 World Champion Lan Xingyu. In doing so, Whittenburg became the first American to win the World title on rings. At age 31 and 61 days, Whittenburg also became the oldest American man to win a World title, surpassing Kurt Thomas, who won two golds in 1979 at age 23 and 254 days, as well as the oldest American man to win a World Championships medal, surpassing Paul O'Neill.

Whittenburg has one named element on the rings.

Apparatus	Name	Description	Difficulty	Added to Code of Points
Rings	Whittenburg	"Triple salto backward piked."	I, 0.9	Newsletter 32, 2017. Performed at the 2017 World Challenge Cup in Koper