Max Whitlock: On winning ways, lauding Simone Biles, and his toddler daughter keeping things real

Imagine, you’re 19 years old and you’re competing at your first Olympic Games. It’s a home Games, London 2012, so the noise of the crowd is cacophonous but you, a teenager, keep your nerve to help your team win an artistic gymnastics medal for Great Britain for the first time in 100 years. You also emulate that bronze medal with a third-place on pommel horse. First Olympics? Two medals? Tick.

Fast forward to your second Olympic Games, and you win an incredible bronze in the men’s all-around competition with a score of 90.641 – Britain's first medal in this final in 108 years, finishing behind Japanese legend UCHIMURA Kohei who took gold (92.365) and Ukraine's Oleg Verniaiev (92.266).

But not many remember that, because you’re world champion on the pommel horse and you have a chance of winning Britain’s first-ever artistic gymnastics Olympic title. You’ve made the pommel horse final, thank goodness, oh and floor final too. So you perform a clean floor routine with thoughts quickly turning to the next apparatus final for men, the pommel horse, in an hour’s time. Your big moment.

But then gold happens, on floor! You’re making history for British gymnastics again, and you can’t even think about it yet. You must work with your coach Scott Hann to calm down, get your focus back on the pommel horse. There’s no rulebook for this, all you can do is just go through the same mental preparation for the routine that you’ve practiced thousands of times and let the routine flow.

And you’ve done it. Gold again! Now you can relax and let that adrenaline flow. Did that all just really happen?

Now you’re headed to Tokyo with the possibility of more British Gymnastics history at your fingertips – to be the first British gymnast to defend an Olympic title, well, two maybe, and perhaps even improve on that bronze team medal from London 2012. How does one person manage all that?

Ultimately, says Whitlock, however the story unfolds, his job is always the same – to do his routine the best he can.

“My job isn't that gold medal,” Whitlock told Tokyo 2020 exclusively last month after being named as one of the four-man team heading to Japan in July. “My job is my routine. And once that's done, if I do it to the best of my ability, then I can only be happy.”

The 28-year-old displays a maturity born of these incredible experiences in which not only his physical ability but mental agility have been tested to the full. He’s aware of the confidence he’s banked from those different experiences ahead of Tokyo.

“I feel very fortunate to be able to look back at the likes of London and Rio, and each one has been a different experience in its own right. To be able to compete under that pressure – a home Games – I lean on that a lot. In Rio, there was a lot of expectancy, especially with the pommel horse, and a lot of uncertainty over the floor. I think I can lean on a lot of what I've done previously and that definitely helps me move forward.

“On the flip side, it does add pressure because I'm expected to come back with gold now that I've done it before, which is really, really difficult. But, you know, all I can do is do my best.”

Father time

The father-of-one says it feels “very, very surreal” to be heading to his third Olympic Games, reflecting, “it seems like very quickly, I've gone from being one of the youngest, 17, to now the oldest one on the team by a few years”.

As much as teammates Giarnni Regini-Moran, James Hall and Joe Fraser are all Olympic Games debutants, they are also hugely experienced, says Whitlock. Fraser, 22, became world parallel bars champion in 2019; Regini-Moran, 22, won the 2014 Youth Olympic Games all-around ahead of one of the Tokyo 2020 favourites, Nikita Nagorny from the ROC; and Hall, 25, has been in the British senior team since 2014 and won bronze in the all-around at the European Championships in 2017. So as much as Whitlock says he is happy to offer guidance if required, he also feels they can all learn from each other.

“If I can offer help to the other guys in any way possible, then obviously, I’m well happy to, but if I'm really honest, I think it works both ways. These guys are experienced in their own right, they've done many major comps before as well, and they know what they're doing, they know how to prepare.”

Lockdown life

No one, however, could have envisaged the devastating global pandemic that appeared in early 2020, disrupting peoples’ lives the world over and causing much suffering. Like everyone else, athletes had to work around lockdown situations as best they could, which differed in every country, while also managing expectations when the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games were delayed.

“When we look back a year ago, it could have very easily been a different story,” said Whitlock. “It could have easily been cancelled and not postponed. So as an athlete, you know, I’m grateful it's going ahead and it's looking very, very positive and I’m excited to get out there and hopefully it can be a way that brings the world together.”

Like many others, Whitlock was unable to attend training sessions for extended periods, so he improvised, keeping his fitness ticking over with a pommel horse in the garden. Thankfully the British weather played ball and he was able to use it.

He also managed his mental health by taking positives out of the situation, including being able to spend time with his wife Leah and toddler daughter, Willow.

“Willow has only just turned two recently, so I was lucky to be at home for the whole time of her literally going through those phases where she's learnt so, so much every single day. If it was normal situations, the whole of last year, I would have been away quite a lot and I would have missed a lot of that, which would have been a huge shame… I always talk about having balance in your life as an athlete is so, so key… If I do have a bad session I come home and Willow literally makes me switch off from that bad session instantly.”

That’s not to say Whitlock didn’t have his lower moments during lockdown but he no doubt drew on the experience of sitting out high-level gymnastics for months after being diagnosed with glandular fever in 2015.

“Actually having a pommel horse in the garden and training at home with Willow around, there were some dynamics that were quite cool – it was exciting, it was cool, it was a bit different, it was a new challenge to take on, and made my motivation go up at times. But there was no doubt that through some of those times my motivation did take some dips.

“Throughout the whole period, I was making sure that I utilised as much as I could, but also not being too hard on myself. So if I needed a few days off, I would take it because I know that is not the end of the world, and makes my mindset in a better place for when I'm ready to go back.”

Giving back

Whitlock and Leah were also keen to do their bit for the gymnastics community, for those kids stuck at home, by encouraging them to exercise via Gymnastics with Max virtual sessions.

“I think it was a time for everybody to come together and do what they could to help each other and that was a way that I definitely knew I could help. There were so many kids obviously not being able to go to the gym, not able to do what they love.

“It was just trying to keep them engaged in gymnastics, you know, for me, I didn't want to see a big tail off when we were able to return. So it was important to keep the buzz around it. I didn't want kids that previously loved gymnastics before lockdown to actually go through lockdown and think, oh maybe I don't want to go back again to something that they loved. So it is important for me to try and help keep that buzz around the sport and it was a good feeling that I helped a lot of kids during that time.”

Whitlock also feels the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will do the same in terms of bringing people together.

“I think sport is something that is very powerful. It's one of the very few things in the world that can actually bring people together the way it does. Obviously, with the situation the whole world has been going through I think that's what the world needs… We're bringing passion out of people, bringing something that people can really get behind, it creates a lot of conversation – that's what sport is all about, it just creates something for people to follow and get into.”

Legacy

Whitlock’s passion for the sport has clearly not waned, and he was buoyant when discussing superstar Simone Biles and her amazing double pike Yurchenko vault that had the gymnastics world abuzz two weeks ago – yes, even perfect 10 Nadia Comaneci in the tweet below – when Biles competed the spectacular vault at the US Classic.

“Absolutely incredible,” enthused Whitlock. “I think what's amazing about Simone is that she is so far ahead of everybody, she's got a huge margin where she could actually make a mistake and still win. So she could very easily just sit back and just breeze through easily – there's no doubt about that. But she's still pushing. She still pushes, she's doing new vaults, new skills that no girl has ever done before. That is just unbelievable.

“And I've got to go as far to say that her double pike Yurchenko, out of the whole of gymnastics, male or female, is probably one of the best in the world. So, yeah, she’s doing an amazing job and I think she's always someone to look up to in terms of still pushing the boundaries when she doesn't need to, and I think that's the key staying on top.”

It's something Whitlock is keen to do himself come Tokyo 2020, and also he says, onwards, for more history perhaps at Paris 2024.

The artistic gymnastics competition starts on 24 July 2021 at Tokyo 2020.

READ MORE: Bluffer's guide to artistic gymnastics: Pommel.