Paris 2024: ‘No absolutely not’ – McClenaghan didn’t know whether he had done enough

Rhys McClenaghan has spoken of those anxious seconds when he waited to hear whether his Olympic Games gold medal dream remained alive.

The Ireland gymnast said his broad smile after he dismounted from the pommel horse in Saturday’s final was the sense of relief “that I had done my job”.

But he admitted he couldn’t be certain he had beaten the “monster score” of 15.433 produced by the very first competitor in the final, Kazakhstan’s Nariman Kurbanov.

“No absolutely not,” said the 25-year-old Newtownards man whether he immediately knew that he had done enough after finishing his routine.

“When we went 0.1 above that was the crazy realisation that this might be the day I become Olympic champion.”

The Northern Irishman still had to wait for the remaining competitors to do their programmes before his gold medal was confirmed.

McClenaghan acknowledged that not adding an Olympic gold to his previous World, European and Commonwealth Games titles would have left “that empty gap” even though “I still would have walked away as Ireland’s most successful ever gymnast and one of the sport’s best”.

“This whole Olympic Games cycle was a redemption, the back-to-back World and European titles and then rounding it off with the Olympic title,” the gymnast gold BBC Northern Ireland’s Good Morning Ulster.

“That was the redemption era for Rhys McClenaghan there. I’m so glad it was completed.”

The gymnastics prodigy had made clear his ambition to win the Olympic title for a decade.

“I’ve been saying that since I probably around 15 or 16.

“To be saying it back then to a lot of people maybe came across as arrogant, or too confident, like ‘what gives this guy the right to say that?’. Now everyone is realising why I said that’.”