Max Whitlock, the greatest British gymnast of all time, fell short of a fairytale ending to his career as he finished in fourth place in the pommel horse while Jake Jarman positioned himself as the future of British men’s gymnastics with a bronze medal in the floor exercise.
As the two-time world champion Rhys McClenaghan confirmed his mastery of the pommel horse by winning his first Olympic gold medal with a stellar score of 15.533, Whitlock finished just outside the medals, scoring 15.2. Nariman Kurbanov, of Kazakhstan, and Stephen Nedoroscik, of the United States, took silver and bronze.
“I’m disappointed,” Whitlock said. “Because it’s so raw, I think it’s quite tricky. It was hard, it was my final one. I didn’t want it to finish that way but, coming to Paris with the decision made that this was going to be my final one not based on what the outcome would be, just based on getting here in the first place and making my fourth Olympic Games, I’m proud of that. Of course I would have liked this chapter to end a little bit better but it wasn’t to be.
“There’s a reason for everything and it wasn’t my day today. It was a very, very strong pommel final, amazing routines from everybody. But that’s me done in the sport, that’s my last routine. I think it will need a bit more time but I’ve never really reflected on my career. If there’s any time to do it it’s maybe now.”
Whitlock had arrived in the final seeking history in the last routine of his career after announcing that he would retire after Paris. Whitlock is a six-time Olympic medallist, with three golds, and he was aiming to become the first man in history to win gold on the pommel horse at three Olympic games in a row.
After qualifying in third place behind McClenaghan and Nedoroscik, Whitlock opted for his most challenging routine in the final, attempting a difficulty score of 6.9. He suffered a significant loss of leg form but recovered and finished strongly, earning a good score of 15.2. The mistake was the difference between contending for a gold medal and fourth place.
As an anguished Whitlock was forced to watch the rest of the competition in a daze, McClenaghan seized the moment to deliver his best possible routine to take gold.
While McClenaghan’s difficulty score of 6.6 was just the joint-fifth highest of the final, nobody in the world performs on the pommel horse like the Ireland gymnast. He circles the horse with incredible extension, straight legs and textbook technique, meaning the judges have far less to deduct in his routines compared with other gymnasts.
Earlier on Saturday, Jarman began the first day of event finals as the No 1 qualifier for the floor exercise, having produced the three biggest floor scores of the Olympics so far. But after three routines, Carlos Yulo, of the Philippines, sat top of the leaderboard with an enormous score of 15.0, a performance that would earn him the distinction of being the first Filipino to win an Olympic gymnastics gold medal in history. He finished just ahead of the Tokyo champion Artem Dolgopyat, who missed out on defending his title by a whisker on 14.966.
With the top two gymnasts setting the bar so high at the Bercy Arena, Jarman held his nerve incredibly well, producing a brilliant routine headed by a spectacular triple twisting double layout to seal his first Olympic bronze medal with a score of 14.933. In the end, the gap between first and third place was just 0.066.
Jarman is capable of producing some of the most staggering gymnastics skills that have ever been seen and his eponymous skill, the Jarman, is the joint-hardest floor skill in the gymnastics code of points.
However, in the early years of his career he struggled to control his power and perform consistently on the floor, failing to make the finals of his first two world championships. This year, he has consistently performed at an excellent level and an Olympic medal is the direct result.
