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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Matt Majendie

Max Whitlock: Three-time Olympic champion to retire after Paris Olympics

Max Whitlock will retire following the Paris Olympics, he announced on Wednesday morning.

Whitlock is a three-time Olympic champion and boasts six medals spanning three Games dating back to London 2012.

And he has set his sights on a golden Games farewell in the French capital this summer on the pommel horse, his No1 apparatus.

“The decision now feels right,” Whitlock told BBC Breakfast. “Going for my final Olympic Games, it feels very, very strange talking about it, and it’s almost hard to articulate what it’s like.

“It’s a really nice mindset to be in, to think I’ll just give it all I’ve got. Ever since Rio where I was at my peak age, I think I’ve had questions thrown at me about when am I retiring.

“I’ve wanted to prove people wrong a lot of the way through my journey and I’ve always had the mindset of trying to do this for as long as I possibly can.

“Now, I’ve given myself the opportunity for Willow [his daughter] to come and watch an Olympic Games because she couldn’t in Tokyo. That’s such a good feeling for me.

“When I’m in areas competing, Willow waits for it to go quiet and she calls for me, and we do this double thumbs-up. I think I’d love to do that in the Paris Olympics.”

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