Whitlock makes histroy by pipping Smith to gold
BySportsbeat
Published 31/10/2015 at 20:45 GMT
It has taken 112 years but finally Great Britain has a male Gymnastics world champion after Max Whitlock edged out Louis Smith in a sensational pommel horse final to claim the gold medal.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
Whitlock leaves Glasgow with three medals to his name, having also earned himself a floor silver at the start of Saturday's finals, to round off a truly historic week for the Brits.
The girls took team bronze in the all-around final on Tuesday, before Whitlock and Smith helped the men team to silver a day later.
It looked like there might be more medals for Whitlock on Friday but a slip on the high bar proved pivotal in his quest for a second World Championship individual all-around medal.
It's been a trying year for the 22-year-old, battling glandular fever in the spring, but Saturday proved to be much happier as he kicked things off for the Brits on the floor.
A score of 15.566 was enough for Whitlock to finish behind Japan's Kenzo Shirai on the podium and add a fourth world medal to his collection.
Then came the pommel horse where Louis Smith racked up a stunning 16.033 to take the lead with just Whitlock left to perform – Britain were guaranteed gold but who would take it was another question entirely.
Whitlock then set about matching Smith blow for blow with a perfect dismount earning him 16.133 and victory by just 0.100 over his teammate.
"That was brilliant, to be honest I can't really believe it," he said. "The word to use to describe this week is historic.
"Louis couldn't be happier for me, and that’s just what our sport is like, and what our team is like in particular - we support each other and we want everyone to do the best they possibly can.
"Louis has done a brilliant job this week too, so everyone is over the moon. It’s been a lot of hard work, and the journey to this competition has been very long.
"To pull it off under that pressure makes me very happy, although I wasn't watching Louis as I was in the back gym warming up.
"I didn’t even hear the crowd as it is a long walk over from there, but I knew Louis would do his job - as he is a persistent and very talented pommel worker - and I just had to focus on mine.
"It wasn’t until I stepped off the podium at the end of my routine that I even saw his score, and I knew it was going to be close so it was up to the judges from then on."
For Smith silver was his fourth world pommel medal. Afterwards he was full of praise for the nerveless performance of Whitlock and is looking forward to what the Brits can produce on the shores of Brazil.
"It's been a tough year for Max being ill at the start of the year and it's just nice to be in that company and if I am going to lose to someone then why not another GB athlete," he said.
"Max was always going to be the one that if everyone went through their routines it would be close between me and him.
"But I have been playing catchup since I came back after having two years out of the sport, because everyone else has improved.
"Today was a show of that, I'm on the rise, I did my new routine here and you can see my mindset is all geared towards Rio."
Elsewhere Dan Purvis brought the curtain down on his Championships after another consistent showing left him fifth on the floor.
And Ruby Harrold also finished with a strong showing as she finished seventh on the uneven bars in a remarkable final that saw Yilin Fan, Viktoria Komova, Daria Spiridonova and Madison Kocian share gold after all scored 15.366.
© Sportsbeat 2015
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