MAX WHITLOCK'S FINALE ENDS IN TEARS AS LEGENDARY TEAM GB OLYMPIAN FALLS SHORT ON POMMEL HORSE IN LAST DISPLAY BEFORE RETIREMENT - AS IRELAND'S RHYS MCCLENAGHAN WINS GOLD

Max Whitlock was reduced to tears after missing out on a final Olympic medal
He was pushed out of the podium places on pommel horse after scoring 5.2
But his career will ensure he is remembered as one of Britain's great Olympians

There was the distinct sound of a child's voice among the cries of encouragement as Max Whitlock went through the final 90-second performance of a career for which he will be remembered as one of Britain's great Olympians.

Whitlock has revealed that his five-year-old daughter, Willow, likes to offer encouragement in unscripted ways when he competes and though he was too consumed by the task in hand to hear anything, the possibility contributed to the burning intensity of the gymnast's treacherously brief last performance.

When Andy Murray made his last stand in this city on Thursday, he had an hour or so to rage against the dying of the light. But the pursuit of glory on pommel horse is over before you know it and thus carries terrible jeopardy.

Even as Whitlock grasped hold of the equipment, he saw that an athlete five years his junior, who had just performed, achieved a score that would make gold that bit harder to retain.

He knew that the younger men - Irishman Rhys McClenaghan, who took gold, and Kazak Nariman Kurbanov, who laid down that gauntlet and claimed silver - would be breathing down his neck. He was slated to perform early, with all the complications that brings.

Whitlock always heads into competition with three possible routines, performing the one his coach Scott Hann, who gauges the other scores, deems necessary for victory. In the 2016 Rio final, as the penultimate performer, he controlled his own destiny.

But when you perform before most of the rest of the field, as Whitlock also did when winning in Tokyo, you have to 'go big' in the hope of hitting a points total no-one else can match. 'When you're early up in a strong final it's almost like you're not left many choices,' he said on Saturday night.

He just couldn't hit the technical level this time. There were errors - legs occasionally not quite as straight as they might have been and other barely visible imperfections - in the moments of extra difficulty he'd added. There was not quite the old gusto. Gradually the field pushed him out to finish fourth. Had he repeated his Tokyo score of 15.582 he would have retained his title. He registered 5.2.

The outcome left him a broken man. He closed his eyes and took some moments to compose himself, not wanting to descend into floods of the tears which welled in his eyes at times when he spoke. 'If I was to look at that back, there were a few errors I'd be a bit gutted with I wished I could clean up,' he said. 'It is what it is. I don't really know what to say. I'm sorry. I'm a little bit thrown.'

He had been a 31-year-old competing in a younger man's game, though this wasn't how he saw things turning out when, having taken a break from the sport after the pressure of Tokyo took a mental toll, he decided to give the Olympics one last shot. He wanted to compete in an Olympics where his wife, Leah, and Willow could be present. 'I'm proud I've managed that,' he said.

Great Britain did register one medal. Jake Jarman took bronze in the individual floor final after also setting himself a high level of difficulty but failing to nail his landings like the Philippines gymnast Edriel Yulo, who took gold. But it was Whitlock the arena awaited. They even screened a career highlights roll before he appeared.

He was trying to find consolation at the end of it all. 'If you take it back to before 2012, when I was a 19-year-old, I really, really, really dreamt I could get a medal. I didn't know how possible it was. To be standing here - and I've finished now - I can be really happy.'

When the dust settles on all this, there really should be contentment for one of the classiest, and most gracious athletes of these 12 years of unbroken British Olympics success.

Since the times when he and Louis Smith were competing for Olympic gold, he has changed the way gymnastics is viewed and inspired thousands to take it up. He said his aim is now to improve access to the sport. 'The way gymnastics is in schools - I want to change that. At the grassroots, I want to change the sport for the better.'

But as he walked way into history, it was hard not to recall a conversation with him in Tokyo, where he reflected that he had wanted gold so much that it had hurt. 'That feeling of winning gold is crazy and you want to experience it again,' he observed. The sentiment still applies. The pain will take some time to recede.

2024-08-03T21:56:13Z dg43tfdfdgfd