Whitlock became the first ever Team GB gymnast to win an Olympic gold medal with victory in the floor final, an event that saw Kristian Thomas finish seventh.
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Team GB teammate Louis Smith claimed the silver medal with Alex Naddour of the United States taking bronze.
Shirai had been the favourite to become the first Japanese gymnast to win the floor exercise since Sawao Kato in 1968, but his gold medal hopes looked shaky when he nearly sat down following a triple twisting front somersault.
TRIBUTES have been paid to Basildon gymnast Max Whitlockl who has made British sporting history by winning two Olympic gold medals in the same day.
Five golds, three silvers and a surge to second in the Olympic medal table; Sunday was undoubtedly an extraordinary day in Great Britain’s sporting history. She’s been anxious sick and just to go through that.it means so much’.
‘The amount of pride I’m feeling right now – I’ve been speaking to my mum quite a lot, she’s at home, she didn’t come out. His arsenal of vertigo-inducing twisting skills has earned him the aforementioned nickname, four skills named after him (three on floor and one on vault) and the 2015 World title on floor.
Max Whitlock gets two gymnastics golds.
“I’ve had a lot of emotions to deal with for nearly a week before the individual final”.
“I’ve been in the sport two decades now and I don’t know if this will be my last Olympics”. “I had another job to do on pommel horse and I had to go back and refocus and get warmed up for that”, he said. The potential has always been there in the pommel horse but the floor was different and gold didn’t seem possible so I am so pleased.
After Team GB’s successes, attention turned to the Olympic Stadium, where Usain Bolt won his third successive 100m gold and South African Wayde van Niekerk broke the 400m world record. Last year’s gold ended Britain’s 112-year hunt for a men’s world champion.
Born January 13, 1994 in Hamel Hampstead, England, Max Whitlock began gymnastics at age 7.
Smith pushed the British team into contention when he won bronze on the pommel horse at the 2008 Olympics.
But a consistent display in the all-around competition resulted in him becoming the first British man to reach the podium in the sport’s most prestigious category.
“Then I felt that we were pushing each other s backs, propelling each other along”.
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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.
