British gymnastics great Max Whitlock ends retirement to pursue 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, saying his career felt “unfinished” after Paris 2024.
BRITISH gymnastics great Max Whitlock said Monday he plans to end his retirement in a bid to qualify for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Whitlock, whose three Olympic gold medals — two on the pommel horse and one on the floor — make him Britain’s most successful gymnast, appeared to have ended his celebrated career following the 2024 Paris Games.
But a failure to add his medal tally in France left Whitlock feeling unfulfilled.
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“I was sitting in a station with my family in a cafe for a little bit (soon after Paris) and I said to them, ‘I’m not done, I can’t finish it like that’,” Whitlock told The Times.
“It was the raw emotion of getting back to the UK and just feeling like I can’t end it like that. Something just didn’t feel right.”
Whitlock, who will be 35 by the time of the next Olympics, is bidding to return to a GB gymnastics team boasting the likes of reigning floor world champion Jake Jarman, nine years his junior.
But he added: “Unfinished is the exact word. My career’s just not complete. I thought, ‘It’s the right time for me to retire but it’s not the right way’.” – AFP
