Have GB’s superstar gymnasts fallen out?
THEY won gold and silver in the same event for Team GB – but there appeared to be little harmony between two of Britain’s greatest gymnasts yesterday.
Louis Smith, who won silver in the pommel horse, had been accused of bad sportsmanship for apparently refusing to congratulate teammate and gold medallist Max Whitlock. There were also claims he muttered ‘b ******* ’ after the results were announced.
In an awkward TV interview yesterday he tried to set the record straight, but tension was still high and the interview did little to dispel rumours that all is not well between the pair.
Smith, who also narrowly missed gold in the event at the London Games, was tense as he rebuffed the criticisms – with Whitlock sitting right beside him.
Whitlock, 23, had become the first Briton ever to win gold in gymnastics when he triumphed in the floor exercises, and then pipped 27-yearold Smith to the title in the pommel horse final less than two hours later.
Smith admitted he was disappointed Whitlock made history instead of him – but insisted he did congratulate him, it simply wasn’t caught on camera. Speaking to Sky News, the former Strictly Come Dancing star said: ‘It was difficult to kind of digest everything and be happy. I took a moment to myself.
‘I’m at the back end of my career and had a real chance of getting a gold Olympic medal, and when it was denied, I needed to take time to reflect. I narrowly missed gold.
‘I was in first place and when Max was up there it was a very nail biting situation. I didn’t want to take that away from him but obviously I needed to digest what was going on and I found it hard.
‘But I am happy now and I have proved so many people wrong. This is my third Olympic Games and I have got a silver medal in my discipline. I’m feeling very good.’
He later wrote on Twitter: ‘Because it wasn’t shown on camera doesn’t mean I didn’t show my respect. Ask Max yourself, then apologise.’
Smith also said his tears on the podium were because he was thinking about everything his mother has done for him, adding: ‘My tears weren’t that of sadness. It was of pride and relief.’
Whitlock, who won bronze in the pommel horse in London 2012, said: ‘We train as hard as possible, we push each other so it helps us both at the end of the day and it helps British gymnastics. If we can both score a good score on pommel horse then it helps us both out.’
Whitlock, who was introduced to gymnastics aged seven by a friend, has been determined to succeed from a young age, even insisting on moving country at the age of 12 to perfect his skills.
He wanted to move to Slovenia after his coach Klemen Bedenik left their training base in Hemel Hempstead to return to his native country. After six months with Bedenik’s replacement, Whitlock gave his parents an ultimatum: either he would quit the sport or go to Slovenia too.
He got his way, and went to live in Maribor – a city of 100,000 people in the north-east of Slovenia.
Whitlock told a newspaper recently: ‘At the time we thought it was the best thing for my training. At that stage I enjoyed the sport, and people saw potential in what I was doing. I wanted to keep it up and that was the way I could.
‘I went to a school in Slovenia. When I look back on it now I think it was pretty crazy. I used to go into school an hour early to do a Slovenian language lesson. I remember writing everything on the board in my book. English lessons were easy for me, but the rest of it was quite different to how we do things here. We would start at six or seven in the morning and finish at 12 or one.’
He settled in well, according to Bedenik, and ‘used to cycle around with his friends after training’.
But Whitlock’s parents, who had stayed in the UK, found remote parenting too difficult and brought him home after three months.
His return to Hemel Hempstead was still demanding, as he spent up to three hours every day travelling to South Essex Gymnastics Club in Basildon, Essex, to be coached by Scott Hann – who is still his coach. He moved to Essex to live near the club with his fiancee two years ago, and still trains six days a week.