Whitlock clinched gold on both the floor and his favoured pommel horse apparatus to become the first British athlete to win two individual Olympic titles on the same day.
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Whitlock did of course take home two Gold medals yesterday – one on the floor, and one on the Pommel Horse.
The 19-year-old averaged 15.966 during her two vaults, well clear of silver medalist Maria Paseka of Russian Federation and bronze medalist Giulia Steingruber of Switzerland.
Team GB star Louis Smith has denied any “rift” with his Olympic team-mate Max Whitlock – and is going to take him for a drink to celebrate their medal success.
Yet that achievement paled into insignificance when compared with Whitlock’s achievement in the Rio Gymnastics Arena on Sunday night.
USA gymnast Alexander Naddour took the bronze medal in pommel horse with a score of 15.700 points.
Due to the time difference between the United Kingdom and Brazil, TV ratings are generally lower for the Rio Olympics compared with London 2012 with much of the action happening overnight. “I believed in myself and my coach believed in me, when nobody believed in me”, he told reporters. Now Whitlock and Smith want to claim further gold in Tokyo in 2020 and beyond.
Rose, the world number 12, wrote his name into the history books earlier in the tournament after carding the first ever hole-in-one in Olympic history. Fellow Brit Louis Smith followed closely behind and won silver for the event.
Max torn up the British gymnastics record books with his performances in Rio where he won the men’s floor and pommel horse titles on Sunday.
“I had to go back to the training gym, refocus and get warmed up to do my job on pommel horse”.
He said: “I received so many negative comments when the team selection was made saying I shouldn’t be in the team”.
“I feel very excited, because having gone to worlds and having two silver and a bronze (on vault at the world championships), it means a lot to me [to now win]”, Biles said. “To do it today, the Olympic Games, I don’t know what to say”. The gold is coming back to Britain. It is bad for me but good for the sport and that is how it should be. Their bronze was the first team medal of any color won by the British men’s squad in 100 years.
Mr Whitlock, from Hemel Hempstead, said that proposing was “probably more nerve-racking than being in an Olympic Games”.
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That is probably why he was able to produce two brilliant performances in such a short space of time; that and the tough, focused mindset of all great champions.
