By Daniel Noble
REIGNING Olympic champion Rhys McClenaghan will aim to bounce back at the European Championships after he missed out on a medal in the Commonwealth Games pommel horse final.
The Newtownards native, who won gold in 2018 and silver in 2022, qualified for the final with an impressive score of 14.500 and would have hoped for more of the same, or better, in the battle for podium places.
However, Canadian Jordan Carroll set the bar incredibly high in the final, dazzling the judges with a routine which earned him a 15.000 and forcing McClenaghan to effectively go for gold or bust.
That pressure eventually told, with the 27 year-old coming to within inches of falling off the pommel horse, before receiving disappointing difficulty and execution scores of 5.200 and 7.800.
Although he felt the judges failed to spot one of his skills, McClenaghan’s appeal for a review was rejected, leaving him with a final mark of 13.000.
That was only enough to finish in sixth place, while Scotland’s Reuben Ward (14.966) and
Cameron Lynn (13.833) claimed silver and bronze respectively. Speaking after the event,
McClenaghan admitted that the missed skill threw him off, saying: “I didn’t have a great start. They didn’t count the first skill, so that dismantled the whole routine.
“I tried to push through the rest of the routine, and it was going well until the end, and the leg splits happened.
“If I had have went start to finish, if that first skill had been counted, and to the untrained eye it is probably nothing, but the judges don’t like to see that.”
His Commonwealth Games campaign may not have ended how he would have wanted, but McClenaghan will not have long to wait for an opportunity to right his wrongs.
“It’s another stepping stone to what’s to come. European Championships in a few weeks,
World Championships in October, and then we look to the LA Olympics. This is the stepping
stone,” he stated.
“If I had have come away with a gold medal today, it also would have been a stepping stone, and I’m sure I would have taken as many lessons.
“It didn’t go to plan. I’m mentioning these mistakes and they’re the finest of margins in this sport, It’s going to happen eventually, if it doesn’t happen in training, it’ll happen in competition.
“I treat them as the same, and I’m going back to the gym to progress even more.”
