Farah Ann binti Abdul Hadi is a prominent Malaysian artistic gymnast who began her journey in the sport at the age of three. She started competing at the national level in the Sukma Games and made her international debut at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, where she contributed to Malaysia’s fourth-place finish in the team event, scoring 12.050 on floor exercise, 10.500 on beam, and 10.250 on uneven bars.
In 2014, Farah Ann earned bronze medals in both the floor exercise and team event at the Artistic Celtic Cup–Commonwealth Invitational in Perth, Scotland. That same year, she placed 11th out of 24 competitors in the women’s individual all-around final at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. In 2015, she competed at the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games), competing in all events, bars, beam, vaults, floor exercise, individual and team in the preliminary round of the competition and made it to the finals of all events.
She took up her first gold medal in the team’s events, followed by a second in the floor exercise. She then gained a silver medal each in both the uneven bars, and individual events. She has won 7 Gold Medals in the Sea Games. After barely missing Rio 2016, she has qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics fully by merit when she finished 59th out of 180 gymnasts in the qualifying session of the individual all-around event at the 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
Farah Ann made history as only the third Malaysian gymnast to qualify for the Olympic Games, representing the country at Tokyo 2020. Her outstanding achievements earned her the title of 2019 Female Olympian of the Year from the Olympic Council of Malaysia. In 2020, she was honoured globally when Mattel immortalised her as a Barbie doll as part of the Barbie Dream Gap Project, which highlights female role models from around the world to inspire young girls.
On March 12, 2022, Farah Ann officially announced her retirement from competitive gymnastics.
