Max Whitlock was warming up for his pommel horse final at the Paris Olympics when his South Korean rival Hur Woong approached him and translated a message into his phone. “It said he’s been watching me for over 10 years and he’s learned a lot from me,” says the 31-year-old. “It’s a surreal feeling to be at competitions with gymnasts that looked up to me when they were young.”
Five days before we meet, Britain’s greatest gymnast stepped up to the pommel for the last time as the reigning Olympic champion. He brushed his hands, blew out his breath and threw himself upside down. His performance was as accomplished as ever, circling the apparatus at astonishing speed, swinging the giant scissor flares that have become his signature. Only the tiniest error, as his legs momentarily drifted apart, cost him points.
This was no ordinary pommel horse final – it was, perhaps, the greatest. Kazakhstan’s Nariman Kurbanov had already laid down a big score and Stephen Nedoroscik, the USA’s bespectacled specialist dubbed the “Clark Kent” of the competition, secured bronze with his superhero moves. But it was the Irish world champion, Rhys McClenaghan, who wove his way to first with a gold-spun routine.
Whitlock has been back from France less than 24 hours when we speak; his fourth-place finish is “still quite raw”. “I feel very lucky that people are celebrating my career as a whole rather than just that one moment,” he says in the south Essex gym that has been his base for the past two and a half decades. “It might take me a little bit longer to get into that mindset.”
His podium-adjacent placing deserves accolades of its own. Whitlock was 23 when he became British gymnastics’ first Olympic champion, in 2016. After defending his pommel title in Tokyo, he quit the sport for more than a year.
Eight years past his physical peak and four months after a hand injury seriously hampered his preparation he showed up in Paris attempting to become the first gymnast to win a medal at four consecutive games on the same apparatus. He was 0.1 points away from achieving it.
As he retires – for good this time – Whitlock’s legacy is incomparable. His 14 world championship and Olympic medals made the impossible possible for all who followed him. He talks of the “upward trajectory” the sport has been on since London, when he was part of the group that secured Britain’s first team gymnastics medal in a century, but you could argue he has been the rocket fuel. In 2015, he was the first British man to win a world championship: three of his countrymen have since claimed the honour.
He has achieved it all in his own, quiet way: his coach, Scott Hann, describes him as a “methodical, calm, down-to-earth person”. As a teen he was once too shy to go into a corner shop to buy a chocolate bar and being overlooked frequently fuelled his determination.
He won his pommel bronze in London after a selector had told him he would not be picked for the team. He won Olympic gold on the floor despite being told the event was not for him. “We do all this jump testing in the gym and I was the worst of all the lads,” says Whitlock. “So I wasn’t tipped for it at all.”
During that Rio final, he did not know he was in the lead. Whitlock has never liked watching other competitors’ routines and he sat “head down”, mentally preparing for the pommel final that would take place in the evening. He did not see the Japanese favourite, Kenzo Shirai, stumble. “I remember it clearly. Scott whacked me in the leg so hard and just said: ‘Max, you’re the Olympic champion.’”
An hour later, Whitlock repeated the trick on pommel. Louis Smith, who took silver, shed tears on the podium, but both men have always insisted their rivalry was a friendly one. “With Louis and Dan Keatings we were a strong nation on that piece,” says Whitlock. “Everybody was pushing each other – you need that competition within a team if you’re going to compete with the rest of the world.”
Having the spotlight diverted to Smith’s big personality probably helped. “It almost gave me a place where I had no pressure on my shoulders.”
The more important figure was Hann, who has shaped him as a gymnast since the age of 12. Ask Hann for his favourite memory of working with Whitlock and he picks out one of their toughest moments: the 2014 world championships in China when Whitlock failed to make a final. “The time difference meant neither of us could reach home to talk to our families,” says Hann. “Then there was an opportunity for Max to go back into the competition because one of the Britons got injured.”
Whitlock, then 21, initially refused to take it: “I do things based on what I feel is right and morally I didn’t feel as if I deserved it.” Hann talked him round and Whitlock finished with silver in the all-around competition. “That was the biggest result I’d ever got and I’d come second to my idol, Kohei Uchimura, the best gymnast that’s ever lived.”
The trust Whitlock and Hann had established bore more fruit at the next year’s worlds, when Smith posted a seemingly unbeatable score. The plan had been for Whitlock to perform his easiest routine – that, says Hann, was the only one they had practised. “I said: ‘Max, do you want to try to win this today, or just try to get a medal?’” From a cold start, Whitlock went with the difficult routine. He finished 0.1pts ahead of Smith and took gold.
After two decades together, Hann and Whitlock know each other “inside out” – Whitlock has married Hann’s wife’s sister. “There were some challenging parts at the beginning,” says Whitlock, who had been dating Leah Hickton since he was 14. “When you have a coaching relationship that becomes a family one, it’s an interesting thing to navigate.
“There’s no doubt I wouldn’t have any of these results if it weren’t for Scott. He’s been incredible not just in caring about me as an athlete but as a person. As I’ve got older, it’s become more of a partnership than a coach-athlete relationship. I’m very grateful for that – there’s a lot of coaches that struggle with that transition as athletes get older.”
Flexibility has been the secret to their successes. When Whitlock contracted glandular fever in 2015, they found themselves repeatedly ripping up the training manual. “I’d be in the gym 15 minutes swinging my arms about and they would weigh a ton,” says Whitlock. “I could never train the same way again.”
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Before Tokyo, he gave up the idea of defending his floor title because the time spent working on it was compromising his pommel work. In the runup to Paris, he had reduced his training from 36 hours a week to 16 and yet, Hann says, “he was the fittest and most consistent he’d been since he was a youngster”.
Two days after the closing ceremony in Paris, a group of Olympians are hanging out at a youth club in north Paddington. The rower Lola Anderson is dunking basketballs with a gold medal around her neck. The boxer Lewis Richardson is watching a bunch of teens go through their sparring drills. A dozen excitable kids are hitting tennis balls at the diver Noah Williams.
Whitlock is here, too, part of an initiative in which National Lottery-funded athletes give back to the communities that supported them. He seems in his element, moving seamlessly between media obligations, sharing a hug and a chat with Katherine Grainger, the 2012 rowing gold medallist who is chair of UK Sport. He is passionate about gymnastics as a foundational sport, having got into it “literally by luck” after a friend at swimming took him along when he was eight.
The athletes he most admires are those he has met during his long career – people such as Jessica Ennis-Hill, Tom Daley and Helen Glover – for “the way they carry themselves, what they’ve done for their sports”. His next focus, to “expand on the impact” he has had as an athlete, is the company he has set up to make gymnastics more accessible in primary schools.
He knows how important a new project is. The first time he stepped away from the sport, after Tokyo, it triggered a mental health crisis. For three months, he was too low, fatigued and unmotivated to get off the sofa and this time, returning to the gym is not an option. “I definitely learned a lot from that experience,” he says. “I need to set myself targets. As a person I’m so purpose-driven.”
He is clearly also values-driven and you wonder how he has felt about the picture of an abusive culture that has emerged in the sport the past few years, not least in the stories of Team GB athletes such as Becky Downie and Nile Wilson. “With their experiences, it’s important that it’s said. If something’s wrong then it needs to change. And this is where I’m passionate about helping the grassroots: I want people to have the same experience that I’ve had.
“I’ve talked to many athletes from different disciplines and they’ve all said they want their children to start with gymnastics – it’s the best all‑round sport.”
His five-year-old daughter, Willow, is taking lessons; one of the things he’s most looking forward to is being present in all her pursuits. “There’s no doubt that it’s harder for mums when they go back to sport, but I’ve definitely found it hard going away for long periods of time. I’ve even had to be careful about basic stuff, like not carrying Willow too long when we’re going for a walk because my arms will be knackered the next day. Now it doesn’t matter.”
There is also the chance to explore activities and opportunities he could never take up when he was competing. Smith won Strictly after he retired and Wilson won Dancing on Ice; could Whitlock soon be applying his acrobatic abilities in a new arena? “I will say now that I am definitely not a dancer,” he says with a smile. “I have got zero rhythm.”
Anyway, the audience that matters most to him is the one that gathered in the Bercy Arena to watch his swansong: eight members of his family, including Leah and Willow. “We all knew that was the final part of this really long 24-year chapter and we tried to treasure the little moments a bit more than usual. Being able to look up in the stands and see my family was a really, really, good feeling.”
The ChangeMaker initiative is a partnership between the National Lottery’s operator, Allwyn, Team GB, ParalympicsGB and UK Sport to support Great Britain’s athletes to make a positive difference to social impact projects they are passionate about
