McClenaghan makes history with World bronze medal
Result copperfastens Down man’s Olympic bid
RHYS Mc CLENAGHAN’S next priority is to increase the level of difficulty in his routine in a bid to make even greater sporting history for Ireland at next year’s Tokyo Olympics.
McClenaghan won an historic bronze medal on the pommel horse at the World Gymnastics Championships on Saturday – Ireland’s first medal at the event.
His 15.400 score for an apparently flawless routine in the final actually prompted some jeers from the crowd in Stuttgart who felt it should have been scored higher.
The top three in an ultra-competitive pommel final were only separated by a tenth of a point with Britain’s Olympic champion Max Whitlock winning his third world title with 15.50 points, ahead of Taipei’s Lee Chih-Kai (15.433) and McClenaghan’s 15.400.
The 20-year-old from Newtownards, already a European and Commonwealth champion, was only pipped for silver by a third of a point.
Yet he had no quibble with the result, saying: “It was the right score for me, it really was.”
Gymnastics routines are scored on a combination of points for ‘degree of difficulty’ and ‘execution’.
McClenaghan scored highest of all the finalists in ‘execution’ – he got the only execution nine in the competition – but his ‘degree of difficulty’ was substantially lower (6.4) than Whitlock’s 7.0.
“There’s so much more to come,” he said. “I can add difficulty, I can increase my execution score even more. I know I can. This is only the start.
“That is the best final I’ve ever seen and I was so proud to be a part of that,” he added.
Winning Ireland’s first ever medal at a gymnastics World Championships has further copper-fastened the Ulster gymnast’s status as a potential Olympic champion in Tokyo 2020, not least because he did it less than a year after shoulder surgery.
Execution
McClenaghan first made his mark by winning pommel silver at World Juniors in 2016 but really burst onto the global stage in 2018 when, competing for Northern Ireland, he won Commonwealth gold in Australia.
He tied with Whitlock’s score in that final but won by a higher execution score.
He followed that up by winning the European title last season in only his first year in the senior ranks when Whitlock’s gamble on a tougher routine backfired and the Olympic champion finished outside the medals.
The young Down star has continued to blossom despite serious disruption and not just due to the surgery he needed last winter.
He used to train at Rathgael Gym
nastics Club in Bangor but had to find an alternative when his coach Luke Carson was made redundant in 2018 and the duo are now based in Dublin, training at Gymnastics Ireland’s high performance training centre on the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown.
The CEO of Gymnastics Ireland Ciarán Gallagher said McClenaghan’s world bronze medal was “an unreal result” and said it “cemented
his position as an Irish and global gymnastics star.”
Elsewhere, American superstar Simone Biles made more history at the World Championships at the weekend. Her fifth all-round title and victory in the team competition brought her to 23 world titles, equalling the record won by men’s legend Vitaly Scherbo, who represented the USSR and Belarus during his career, between 1991-’96.