The 27-year-old tweeted: “I’m so relieved”. In London Team GB finished with 65 medals, 29 of them gold, and finished third in the medal table. Their bronze was the first team medal of any color won by the British men’s squad in 100 years.
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Taking to Twitter, one said: “Louis Smith seemed well jeal of #MaxWhitlock beating him to the gold medal”.
Despite being a two-time Olympic medalist, Whitlock didn’t truly establish himself as a serious podium contender until 2014.
But when his teammate, Nile Wilson, injured his wrist and had to withdraw from the all-around final, Whitlock received his spot.
Rose became the first Olympic champion in the sport for 112 years, with Henrik Stenson securing the silver medal for Sweden. He was one of the favorites in the event, but he wound up finishing his routine in fifth place, well out of medal contention. Then he showed his tumbling prowess with a silver medal in the floor exercise.
Despite the weight of his first gold in the floor exercises, he did not have time to enjoy the moment as his day was only half over.
But given the difficulty of Shirai’s routine, Whitlock was still unsure where the 19-year-old would end up in the pecking order and he sat with his head down, jiggling nervously with his feet as he waited for the scoreboard to flash up his rival’s result.
The gymnast said he does not watch others compete, in order to keep his focus and stay calm, and that left him unable to view Uchimura’s final routine.
King Kohei was clearly off form as he hopped off the mat early in his routine. But an nearly as intense battle was happening for bronze, with around six gymnasts in contention.
Although they are by no means podium favourites, after Whitlock’s sensational day, they will surely believe that anything is possible. This was my first floor final in the Olympics and the fact it only comes around once every four years makes it even more special.
“Since team announcement that we made back in Lilleshall what the Olympic team was going to be I got so many messages and comments saying, “shouldn’t be in the team”, “why is Louis in the team over X, Y, Z”, he only does pommel horse”, “he’s not as good as Max anymore'”.
Jason Kenny won Team GB’s 14th gold of the Games when he beat his room-mate Callum Skinner to retain his Olympic cycling men’s sprint title.
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After a brief pose for photographers, Whitlock was ushered away to prepare for the pommel horse final where he was expected to go head-to-head with team-mate Louis Smith.
