Hélène Karbanov

Hélène Karbanov (born 29 December 2004) is a French individual rhythmic gymnast of Kazakh and Russian descent. She is the 2024 French National all-around champion and the 2022 bronze medalist.

Career
Karbanov took up rhythmic gymnastics at age eight. She first competed in the sport in 2013 with her club Calais GRS.

Junior
In her first junior season, she won the silver medal in the French National all-around behind Valérie Romenski, even though she still had Russian citizenship at that point. In January 2018, she obtained French citizenship. Being able to compete internationally for France, she was selected to represent her country at the 2018 European Championships in Guadalajara. She finished 8th in the team competition, 29th with ball and 30th with clubs.

In 2019 she became the French junior all-around champion, and she also won silver with ball and bronze with ribbon. She was selected to compete at the 2019 Junior World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships in Moscow, Russia. She participated with clubs and ribbon, where she finished in 9th and 11th place respectively. Polina Murashko from Estonia had the same clubs score as her, but the Estonian gymnast was able to enter the final with her better execution score as the tiebreaker.

Senior
In 2022, she was part of French team that competed at the 2022 European Championships in Tel Aviv, Israel and took 7th place in the team competition. She placed 13th in the all-around Final and qualified for the ribbon final, where she finished 7th. That year, she also debuted at the senior World Championships. The competition was held in Sofia, Bulgaria, and she placed 22nd in the all-around qualifications.

In 2023, she competed at Portimao World Challenge Cup, where she took 8th place in the all-around and won a silver medal in the ribbon final. At the 2023 World Championships, she ended in 13th place in the all-around qualifications and qualified to the all-around final, where she took 17th place.

In 2024, she entered the World Cup stage in Sofia, where she placed 16th. In May, she competed at the 2024 European Championships in Budapest, Hungary and took 15th place in the all-around final. In June, she won her first senior National all-around title in front of Maelle Millet.