Celebrating a gold medal at Tokyo 2020
British elite gymnast Max Whitlock has come through for Team GB and defended his gold medal in the Men’s pommel horse at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, becoming the first Brit ever to do so.
Tokyo 2020 proved to be no match for Max Whitlock
The pressure is astounding so for him to smash it out the park is pretty amazing. Despite the fact that he makes it look easy, according to Whitlock himself, it wasn’t as easy as all that: ‘This was the most nervous I’ve been for any competition I’ve done in my whole life,” he said. “Retaining titles is ten times harder than chasing. Today’s proved that to me. Actually it’s a million times harder’
After conquering the pommel horse, Max likes to sit on it
The 28-year-old hails from Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire and like Tom Daley before him, says that it is his family that drives him. Whitlock married his high school sweethearts Leah Hickton in back in July 2017and then the following year, the couple set up the Max Whitlock Gymnastics Club which has locations in Colchester and Southend. Spurring him on from home was also their first child, Willow, their daughter who was born on in February 2019.
Oof Max's beefy arms are born and raised in Britain
With classic bulging biceps and extremely snug tracksuit bottoms, Whitlock drew the short straw and had to perform his routine first in the pommel horse final. Max’s hugely challenging routine was pretty damn flawless and as the most difficult he had ever done on the world stage, he displayed it practically perfectly, making it almost impossible for the gymnasts that followed him to beat his giant score.
Max channelling Geri Halliwell's Union Jack dress at the World Championships
As we have seen with our profile of the top gymnast in the world, having huge upper body strength is vital to the hugely intense of sport. They literally trains for years five years only to be out there for about 80 seconds of with each routine, especially on the pommel horse. Imagine all that work and then getting it wrong or making mistake, it’s not surprise that they retire early or have problems mentally as well as physically.