Britain's Greatest Gymnast Prepares To Make History

Max Whitlock will be checking the record books as much as the rest of us at Paris 2024. The best pommel horse worker of all time, Whitlock can become the first gymnast in history to win four consecutive medals on the same apparatus.

- TOM HARLE

Whitlock is already Britain's best-ever gymnast by a distance and he's not afraid to tap into the motivation of making history in the French capital. “I don’t shy away from that stuff anymore,” he says. “When I was younger, I never used to think about medals or results and where you stand in history. Now I’ve learned how important it is to grab motivation from everywhere you possibly can. Making history is one of those and I would love to give myself the opportunity to do that.”

In pursuit of immortality, the 30-year-old has built a fiendish routine that will have a much higher difficulty score than any of his rivals. It is shorter than his Tokyo routine, packed with pitfalls and difficult combinations, with a tariff so high he knows that, if he completes it, he is certain to win a fourth Olympic gold.