6 days ago
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Team GB gymnastics star Max Whitlock has announced he is coming out of retirement to target gold at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
Three-time Olympic champion Whitlock, 32, said ahead of the 2024 Games in Paris that the event would be his last.
Whitlock finished a disappointing fourth in the pommel horse competition in the French capital and has revealed the result was 'gnawing away at me', sparking a change of heart.
He told The Times: 'I was sitting in the station with my family in a café for a little bit and
'I said to them, "I’m not done, I can’t finish it like that". It was the raw emotion of getting back to the UK and just feeling like I can’t end it like that.
'Unfinished is the exact word. My career’s just not complete. It was just really gnawing away at me.
Max Whitlock has revealed he is coming out of retirement after his Paris 2024 disappointment
'I thought, "It’s the right time for me to retire but it’s not the right way". And that’s something that spooks me if I’m really honest because I was pushing it a bit going into Paris in terms of my age. So you can imagine how much I’m pushing it now. It’s a massive challenge.'
Whitlock will be 35 by the time of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 and said he was 'on a mission' to 'rewrite the end of my career' by winning gold.
He is also working on new skills for three different pieces of apparatus - the high bar and parallel bars, as well as his preferred pommel horse discipline - in a bid to add to his tally of six Olympic medals.
The Times reported British Gymnastics, which governs the sport in the UK, was surprised at his decision but keen to learn how Whitlock planned to manage his comeback.
He is set to compete at the English Championships in February before participating in the British Championships and then the Commonwealth Games in Scotland.
Whitlock had attempted to make history as the first gymnast to win a medal on one piece of apparatus at the Olympic Games in the pommel horse event in Paris but could only manage fourth.
The Team GB star had teased his return in a series of posts on Instagram. 'A small mistake cost me in the final and it ended my career in a way that felt strange and difficult,' he wrote.
'Fourth place sounds close but feels a million miles away. My family reminded me of the bigger picture and they were right but in that moment it was hard for me to think like that. I felt like I had failed.
'That feeling is still there but what’s important is what you do next...'
