Max Whitlock talks 2022, Simone Biles and Paris Olympics

Most athletes would be lucky to experience a major competition at home during their careers.

Three-time Olympic champion Max Whitlock – to his delight – will compete at two this year alone.

He will be present at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in July and August, the first time it has taken place in England since 2002, before putting his Great Britain kit back on for a home Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Liverpool in October.

The 29-year-old also competed at a home Olympic Games, winning two medals at London 2012.

"I'll take a home competition over anything," the Brit said in a recent interview with the Times.

Two home championships for Max Whitlock

"A year with a home Commonwealth Games and a home World Championships just doesn't happen," Whitlock pointed out.

The Commonwealth Games are a competition for countries that are part of the Commonwealth of Nations, mostly made up – although not entirely – of countries that were part of the former British Empire. Team Great Britain doesn't compete at the event, with England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey – the areas from which athletes can represent Team GB at the Olympic Games – competing separately.

With England last hosting the Commonwealths in Manchester twenty years ago, this will be the first time Whitlock competes at a home Commonwealths.

"The Commonwealth Games has been a key event in my career so far and to have a home games for Team England on the horizon is fantastic," he said last year.

Perhaps surprisingly, Whitlock – king of the pommel horse – has never won gold on that apparatus at the Commonwealth Games. "I don't know why not," he added to the Times. "It's simply something I haven't achieved."

But a potential first Commonwealth pommel title is not all the Essex gymnast has to look forward to this year.

The northwestern English city of Liverpool will host the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships at the end of October, the second time Whitlock will have competed in a home Worlds after Glasgow in 2015.

"You feel the intensity from the audience, everyone knows what it means," he said of competing in front of a British crowd at Worlds. "They are so invested," he explained.

The World Championships server as a Paris 2024 Olympic qualifier, with the top three men's and women's teams securing their spots for 2024.

That means a wider range of athletes will be competing as compared to at an Olympic Games, where the field has already been thinned out through qualification.

"For the Olympics you have to qualify, for the Worlds it's an easier route to get there so you have more gymnasts competing against you, more variety," Whitlock said. "It's even harder to make the final, let alone win a medal."

Whitlock's admiration for Simone Biles

Everyone who follows sport remembers the bravery shown by American gymnast Simone Biles at Tokyo 2020, when she withdrew midway through the team final as well as from four of her individual finals after suffering a mental block known as the "twisties".

Whitlock, who was also present in Tokyo, said that he has never had to experience the twisties, but expressed his admiration for Biles, a fellow superstar of global gymnastics.

"A twisties problem is so common. When you are doing the types of moves Simone is doing it becomes so dangerous," he said.

Since her act in Tokyo, Biles has inspired countless other athletes to be more open about their mental health.

She was nominated for the Laureus World Comeback of the Year Award in recognition of her bravery in opening up.

"Definitely bringing a light to the conversation of mental health [means the most]," Biles said in Tokyo. "It's something that people go through a lot that's kind of pushed under the rug.

"I feel like we're not just entertainment, we're humans as well. We have feelings. And at the end of the day, people don't understand what we're going through."

Whitlock shares that view.

"It was a good thing she was thinking about the bigger picture and made a lot of people think twice about a sport that can be really dangerous," he acknowledged to the Times.

Whitlock looks back at Tokyo 2020 and forward to Paris 2024 Olympic Games

Between returning from winning pommel horse gold in Tokyo last summer – when he defended his Olympic title on the apparatus – and late last month, Whitlock chose to take a break from training to spend time with his wife and daughter.

The Brit was the first to perform in the final, and after setting the mark to beat had to watch his seven rivals attempt their routines and try to knock him off the top.

"The only option was the biggest routine, but it was such a good thing," Whitlock said. "It worked out perfectly, my routine was better than in the build-up. I could sit there knowing I had done the best I could do. I hadn't made any little mistakes."

Whitlock's routine in the final was the most difficult of the eight, receiving a 7.0 D-score which no-one else matched.

Speaking to Olympics.com back in Tokyo, he confirmed: "It was all or nothing. I was first man up; I had to go all out," he said afterward. "It's my biggest I've ever done, ever competed in my life."

Daughter Willow, who is now three, plays a big part in Whitlock's plans.

Aside from taking time out of training to spend time with her, he also told Olympics.com last year that she is his guiding force for the next two-and-a-half years to Paris 2024.

"Willow's been a huge positive impact in terms of my sport, in terms of actually putting a lot of things into perspective and making me chilled in some of the most pressured environments that we go out in.

"[She is a] huge motivation for me to kind of go on to Paris. I would love for Willow to come out and see what I do.

"That’s a huge motivation for me to continue."