Pommelled Horse, Men

Defending Olympic and World Champion Max Whitlock qualified for his only apparatus final in Tokyo in fifth place, while Ireland’s Rhys McClenaghan gave a magnificent performance in finishing joint second. The Irishman was both the Commonwealth Games and European Championships pommel horse gold medalist in 2018, and Worlds bronze medallist in 2019.

Whitlock was hoping to add to the two golds he won at Rio in 2016, and since the Rio Games he had won two World Championships and one European gold medal. He was the first up, and gave a near-perfect routine, and his 15.583 was a score that was going to be tough to beat. Lee Chih-Kai of Chinese Taipei, who topped qualification, was the fifth competitor to take to the horse and, whilst he had a better execution score than Whitlock, could not catch the Briton after posting a total of 15.400. Japan’s Kazuma Kaya immediately moved into the bronze medal position after a 14.900, and with the two men who finished joint second in qualifying, McClenaghan and Kohei Kameyama of Japan still had to perform, and one of them was likely to move into a medal position. McClenaghan slipped off in the early part of his routine and neither he or Kameyama could catch Kaya, so the final result saw Whitlock take his third Olympic gold, and second successive pommel horse gold, by just 0.183 points from Lee Chih-Kai. The last man to successfully defend his Olympic pommel horse title was Zoltán Magyar of Hungary in 1976 and 1980.