There is a blessing and curse in being the last man up on the pommel horse in the World Championship final, only by then Rhys McClenaghan was already in a realm of his own.
Defying all pressure and expectation, McClenaghan balanced his incredibly cool nerve and biting ambition to win another magnificent gold medal at the Antwerp Sportpaleis on Saturday afternoon, back-to-back world titles in the most testing men’s apparatus where anything can and often does go wrong.
Just as important for the 24-year-old from Newtownards, it sealed his Olympic qualification, Paris now just under 10 months away. It was telling too the gold and silver medal winners from Tokyo, Britain’s Max Whitlock and Lee Chih Kai from Chinese Taipei, didn’t make the podium here, both falling in their earlier routines.
McClenaghan fully understands that deal. His hopes of making the Olympic podium in Tokyo ended after 10 seconds when he fell chest-first on to the horse and ended up seventh. “I’ll be walking away from this a more dangerous man,” he said. “Because with disappointment comes an incredible amount of motivation and inspiration.”
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All that was on display here, an utterly flawless 45-second routine that was in the end devastatingly good. Rounding up the eight-man contest, he might well have known exactly what was required to win, only he ignored everything that had gone before, his score of 15.100 clear of first-time finalist Khoi Young from the USA, the 20-year-old student at Stanford University winning silver with 14.966.
“There are two big giant screens back in the warm-up hall that I have just avoided,” McClenaghan said. “Quite a lot of falls today, from what I’ve heard. Maybe that would have set me off a little. I didn’t pay attention to the fact that Lee Chih Kai fell. In the warm-up hall it was just tunnel vision, and I am glad it was like that. Two-time world champion, but what I am most relieved for is to be qualified for the Olympics. There is always relief and learnings, and I’m already thinking about what I can improve on in that routine.”
If there was pressure to win that first world title in Liverpool this time last year, it was heightened here, especially given Whitlock’s presence, his first world championship since winning a second successive Olympic gold in Tokyo.
The 30-year-old Whitlock faced pressure of his own, seeking a record fourth title on the pommel horse, and was best in qualifying last Sunday. A fall late in his routine killed his momentum, limiting his score to 14.300 and he ended up fifth.
“In the heat of the moment, that’s what happened and I can’t change that,” said Whitlock, whos has been candid about his break from the sport since Tokyo for mental health reasons. “But there’s definitely positives I can draw from it, even though the final result wasn’t what I hoped for.”
Indeed Whitlock had beaten McClenaghan at last month’s World Cup in Paris, but everything about the Irish man’s performance here underlined a new level of consistency in his routine, arguably his finest to date given the stakes, scoring 6.400 for difficulty with a superb 8.700 for execution.
Young was third up of the eight finalists, his 14.966 (a difficulty score of 6.500, and 8.466 for execution) leaving him in the gold medal position until McClenaghan stepped up to defend his title in style — dazzling as ever in the speed of handwork across the horse, mixing immense agility and brute strength, wrapped up in the perfectly stunning dismount.
So, five years ago after announcing his arrival at age 18, beating Whitlock to win gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, it’s now his seventh championship medal in all (two World Championship gold and one bronze, two European gold, plus Commonwealth Games gold and silver) and there’s no disguising his desire now to win the only one missing. “That’s certainly my goal after I proved that I can be World champion, twice,” he said.
McClenaghan’s long-time coach Luke Carson added: “This one hit differently, very proud to be part of this moment in history.”
With that increasing strength of mind too, McClenaghan switches his focus towards Paris and winning the final honour he has not already secured for Irish gymnastics.
