Gymnastics
Max Whitlock is the most successful British gymnast ever, with six Olympic medals. After a fear of failure saw him walk away, the journey back has been a lesson in embracing imperfection
Max Whitlock pauses beside the pommel horse in the near-silence of an empty arena at the COVID-stricken Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Fully focused, the Team GB gymnast launches himself up into a handstand before dropping down into ever-faster pivots, every muscle engaged in controlling the weight of his body as he spins. He’s a flurry of movement, pitching himself up to hand-walk across the pommel before continuing to rotate, whirl, amaze…
This performance in July 2021 won Whitlock a gold medal and confirmed him as a generational talent. He’d retained his pommel title from Rio 2016 – where he bagged two golds in two hours – to become, with his sixth Olympic medal, the most successful gymnast in British history. His team, his nation, were jubilant. Whitlock, famously stoic, celebrated his triumph with a small smile and a raised fist.
Mark England, Team GB’s chef de mission for Rio, Tokyo and next year’s Games in Paris, says the win elevated Whitlock to “the pinnacle” of his sport. Naturally, he was keen to retain the medallist’s services. “Have you thought about Paris? Come on, if you do it, I’ll do it,” England joked en route to the post-competition press conference. At 28, Whitlock was one of the more senior athletes competing, but as a giant of British gymnastics it seemed a given he’d want to continue as long as he could. Whitlock wasn’t so sure. “My mindset had always been to continue for as long as I possibly can,” he says. “But that had started to change.”
Whitlock is reliving his time in Tokyo on a sunny July day almost exactly two years after the event. Rather than basking in the glow of yet another Olympic gold, he says, his downtime after Tokyo was dogged by a nagging self-doubt that had been building since a disappointing silver at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Doha, Qatar, in autumn 2018. “That was a year that taught me a lot,” Whitlock says. “Publicly, it was perceived that I had failed because I didn’t get gold. That hit me quite hard. It’s when a fear of failure first set in.”
This fear had stayed with him, exacerbated by the pressure of lockdowns in the lead-up to the delayed Tokyo Games. “That feeling of retaining [the gold medal] was unbelievable,” says Whitlock. He means this literally. “When I landed the pommel routine in Tokyo, I remember saying to myself, ‘I cannot believe I’ve just done that,’ because I thought there was a chance I wouldn’t,” he says. “I’m competing against youngsters in their prime. If I fail, if I make a mistake, it’s noted. I felt the most nervous I’ve ever felt in any competition.”
Whitlock enjoyed the period immediately after the Olympics: “For the first three months, it felt like freedom; no ties, no training.” But as time went on, he felt that now-familiar weight of expectation return to his shoulders. “Every year that goes by, the sport becomes harder,” Whitlock says. “That fed into a fear of looking forward and wondering what will happen if I don’t achieve more targets. Then it just hit me. Suddenly I was adamant I was finished with the sport. I was done.”
Today, at the South Essex Gymnastics Club in Basildon, Whitlock looks far from finished. As he rises to return to the pommel horse, his hands coated in chalk mixed with maple syrup for grip, he looks calm and capable. After 23 years in the sport, gymnastics has shaped him mentally and physically. Despite extreme shyness as a child – he couldn’t even buy his own sweets at the shop – a 12-year-old Whitlock mustered the wherewithal to move to Slovenia for gymnastics. He petitioned his parents to let him leave his hometown of Hemel Hempstead to train with coach Klemen Bedenik in Maribor. Bedenik had been so impressed by Whitlock’s talent at the age of seven – partly thanks to strength he’d built in the pool as a swimmer before discovering gymnastics – that he’d made space for the youngster on his roster at Hemel Hempstead club Sapphire Gymnastics. Now Whitlock couldn’t see a future in the sport without him.
He issued an ultimatum: either he moved to Slovenia with Bedenik or he gave up gymnastics. Begrudgingly, his parents gave their consent. So Whitlock moved in with Bedenik and his family. As well as training, he attended school, where he would arrive an hour early to learn Slovenian before normal lessons began. It was demanding, but, reasoned Whitlock, gymnastics was worth it. “That constant, rewarding feeling of learning something new is unbelievable,” he says. “The achievement of doing even one new skill is amazing, you get such a buzz. I wanted to keep it up, and [relocating] was the way I could.”
The move lasted just three months as Whitlock’s parents felt the strain of their young son living more than 1,500km away. To tempt her son back, Whitlock’s mother sought out the services of Scott Hann, a British coach with a proven track record, who lived a comparatively local three-hour round trip from the family home. So began almost a decade of multiple weekly trips to the South Essex Gymnastics Club where Whitlock trains today – a cavern of pommel horses, high bars and foam pits inside a public sports club where Hann is director of coaching.
Before Whitlock relocated to Upminster in 2014, Hann described his constant commuting as “a crazy commitment”. But the coach estimates only two per cent of athletes have a chance of competing at a professional level; gymnastics is an unforgiving sport for all but the most dedicated. It’s often described as the world’s toughest sport, and with good reason – the sheer number of moving parts can be dazzling as athletes work to hone multiple skills: strength, agility, power, flexibility, speed, unwavering mental focus. “There are so many different skills and variations within gymnastics, and you might teach them 10 different ways depending on the physicality of the athlete,” says the affable Hann, 42, a former gymnast himself. “In any given routine, there are 10 elements. There are six different pieces of apparatus, so that’s 10 skills each, each of which can be taught 10 different ways.”
To keep up, Whitlock was training six days a week, for up to 35 hours, as well as attending school. “It was tricky [balancing school and gymnastics],” he says. “I did feel busy compared with most school-age kids, but I also felt lucky to be doing what I was doing. I just loved being a part of the sport.”
His efforts were paying off, with Hann describing him as “light years away from anybody else”. Whitlock made the decision to leave education after secondary school to focus solely on his sport. The titles began to stack up; he won gold on the pommel horse and floor at the 2010 Junior European Championships, earning a second-place finish in the all-around – the highest combined score across all six events.
The same year, he travelled to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi as part of the team that won silver in the men’s artistic all-around team event. He continued to win medals at world and European championships, bagging his first two Olympic honours – both bronze – at London 2012 for the pommel horse and all-around. By the time Tokyo 2020 came around, Whitlock had decided to focus his training on the former. He would still compete in the floor exercise – he’d won gold at Rio 2016 – but it wouldn’t be his main focus. He ended up taking gold in both.
Medals aside, it was clear to those around Whitlock that they were in the presence of a unique athlete. “People are practising, say, 50 routines a week, [but] Max is doing almost 150, just going over and over every skill,” says Courtney Tulloch, a specialist in rings and vault who took bronze at the 2022 World Championships and also trains under Hann in Basildon. “That’s why the [skill] gap is massive. It’s incredible.”
Whitlock remembers struggling with a squat landing from the high bar. Rather than aim for one perfect landing, he decided he needed to do six in a row, and he didn’t leave the gym until he’d nailed it. “It’s more efficient,” he says, matter-of-factly. “They talk about 10,000 hours [to become an expert in something]. I must have done 30,000 hours. My whole life I’ve just wanted to see how far I can push it. Whenever I’ve come back after a break, I want new routines, to push the bar again. Then, when I go to a competition, I have no choice but to do the biggest routine I can.”
I feel like everything I do now is a bonus, so I can give it my all
For Hann, it’s this desire to focus on the most difficult moves that sets Whitlock apart. In gymnastics, skills are rated by letter, starting with A. Hann says most people go for one or two Ds and Es, but mostly stay on safe ground with Cs; Whitlock aims for Ds and Es in almost everything. During the floor exercise in Tokyo, Whitlock incorporated an ‘air flair’ in which an athlete rotates their body vertically while also travelling in a circle along the floor. “It’s so ambitious,” says Hann. “It’s so difficult that even if it’s not perfect, it’s really impressive.”
There’s also pressure to peak at the right time. As well as the World Championships in autumn, there’s the European Championships in April, with qualifications beforehand. The Olympic and Commonwealth cycles eat up any remaining free time. “It’s day in, day out,” says Tulloch, who hasn’t taken more than 10 days off in a row since the age of seven.
Whitlock proved time and again that he had the rare ability to perform some of the most demanding routines under pressure in front of large crowds. “From a young age, I had this mature mindset where I go with the flow and don’t take things in too much, be they good or bad,” Whitlock says of his rise. “I never let results go to my head, which helped me stay level-headed.” Hann sees this reserved nature as a strength in competition: “As a person, Max is calm, methodical. He’s very introverted, and I think that helps him stay calm under pressure.”
As each gold medal raised the stakes, privately Whitlock was starting to falter for the first time. When he quietly announced his retirement a few months after the Tokyo Olympics, the reality of the weight he’d been carrying hit him “like a ton of bricks”, he says. “I realised how physically and mentally straining it was, just being on 24/7. You have to be switched on all the time.”
It’s only relatively recently that mental health in sport has become openly discussed, with high-profile athletes including tennis ace Naomi Osaka, England cricket captain Ben Stokes and footballer Dele Alli among those speaking out about their struggles. Talking to The Times during Tokyo 2020, Whitlock voiced his support when Simone Biles, a young medal-hopeful gymnast on the US team, temporarily dropped out of the competition, citing mental health concerns. “When you’re doing the types of moves Simone is doing it becomes so dangerous,” Whitlock said. “[She] made a lot of people think twice about [the] sport.”
It took time for the Team GB gymnast to discuss his own mental health struggles. “I was trying to make myself feel like, ‘Yeah, I’m content. I’ve done more than I could have ever dreamed of in the sport,’” Whitlock says of his retirement. “I miss my family massively when I’m away. [Initially] being back was great.”
At home in Upminster, his four-year-old daughter was practising her own gymnastics routine on a mini beam. Whitlock kept himself occupied working on an app for gymnastics coaches, and a grassroots programme to attract young people into the sport. But with no personal sporting goals for the first time in his adult life, a different reality began to hit home. Whitlock felt unmotivated, sluggish. He couldn’t get out of bed. “Gymnastics is all I’ve known for 20 years,” he says. “[Leaving] was a total switch. As a gymnast, you have short-, medium- and long-term targets, with a complete achievement pathway. [That lack of purpose] is really, really tough.”
What Whitlock had seen as an escape route began to feel like a dead end. “When I looked to the future, I couldn’t see clearly what I wanted to do, and I remember just sitting there feeling like a waste of space. I was lost. I didn’t have a plan. I wasn’t eating well. I wasn’t exercising at all. [I felt like] a failure.”
In Tokyo, I was the most nervous I've felt in a competition
After months of suffering alone, Whitlock did something he never thought he would: nervously, he opened up to his wife Leah. “I’d never [spoken about my mental health] before,” he says. “I saw it as a sign of weakness.” It was torturous to begin with; the first time he spoke to his family, he struggled to get the words out. “I couldn’t even comprehend what I was feeling, but the more I spoke and used my family as a sounding board, the more I could understand it.”
It was clear he needed a goal, but when Leah suggested he get back in the gym he was reluctant at first. Recovery was a slow process. Whitlock didn’t speak to a therapist, but he says that sharing his feelings with his family over a period of months helped him to deal with the issues that had pushed him into retirement. He began to regain some of the fight that had seen him achieve so much. “I realised I didn’t want to stop because of the fear of failure,” he says. “I would hate it if in ten years’ time my daughter asked why I didn’t go to Paris. I’d have to say, ‘I was scared of not achieving what I was expected to.’ That’s such a bad message. It feels like a coward’s way out.” Finally, after more than a year away from the gym, Whitlock reached out to Hann: he was coming back.
Whitlock mounts the pommel horse, twists, turns, winces. He drops to his feet, walks off, catches his breath. He holds out his hands, showing sizeable blisters and grazes. “Just little ones,” he says. Then he goes again. Blisters aside, today at the South Essex Gymnastics Club a post-retirement Whitlock is clearly enjoying himself. Sporting a crop of dark hair and a ready smile, the 30-year-old retains a boyish look, which, combined with his air of reserved calm, makes it easy to imagine the shy 12-year-old who first entered this gym in 2005. “When Max said that he was coming back, I warned him that it would be difficult,” explains Hann. “But I could see that he needed that purpose. Once he had that, it was so nice to see him smiling again.”
Whitlock has approached his return in a relaxed manner, gradually ramping up his training. “That first session [back] was an hour or two, maximum,” he says. “It was just light stretching and being in the environment again. It was going in with a fresh mindset, and I loved every minute of it, slowly working towards competing again. I didn’t feel nervous. [In the end] it wasn’t this big thing – I was just excited to be back around my teammates.”
Not one to do things by halves, Whitlock now has his sights set on competing at Paris 2024. He’s preparing routines on the pommel horse, the demanding apparatus that has already won him three Olympic medals; the parallel bars, another serious test of strength with routines incorporating handstands and backflips; and the high bar, on which gymnasts complete acrobatic 360° rotations. Taking his age into account, Whitlock has devised a brand-new routine for the pommel that is shorter and less demanding – but which still has medal potential.
Watching his friend’s return, Tulloch has been amazed. “The amount of time he had off, it would take anyone else a year or two to build it back,” he says. “Within one or two sessions, Max was doing the skills he was doing at the Olympics. I would say that’s almost impossible, but for him it’s normal.”
Having faced losing the sport that defines him, Whitlock feels he’s now in a stronger place. “[I had a] reset and came back a refreshed, younger version of myself,” he says. “The fear of failure has almost disappeared, because I feel like everything I do now is a bonus, so I can go out and give it my all.”
On social media, the gymnast now shares the bad days as well as the good; he’s comfortable opening up about the often-disappointing sessions he must endure to achieve the polished routines that have made his name. “People look at me and think I’ve got it all figured out, and I definitely don’t,” he said on his YouTube channel shortly after his return. “I’ve only ever showed what I’ve done [perfectly, on social media]. Now, if I have a bad session, I’ve changed my mindset – it’s the process that’s important. I’m excited to give more of an insight, to show the reality of it.”
Hann says Whitlock’s openness has inspired countless other athletes. “Coaches and gymnasts are very keen to push themselves,” says Hann. “But you’ve got to have that balance and that awareness of when enough is enough.” A lot of Hann’s work is now focused on finding an equilibrium between athlete performance and mental wellbeing. Tulloch says team psychiatrists are much more visible in and around training sessions, and it helps him to talk after a difficult day.
Should Whitlock win a place on the podium in the pommel in Paris, he’ll become the first gymnast in history to bag four consecutive medals on the same apparatus. But Whitlock feels he has nothing to prove to anyone but himself. “My whole journey has been to see where I can take it for myself,” he says. “Twenty years down the line, I don’t want to think, ‘What if I’d tried for another couple of years? What would I have done?’ I want to see what my full potential is.”
Whitlock’s first major post-retirement competition will be the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Antwerp in late September/early October. And beyond that? “It’d be easy for me to say it’s a final push to Paris then I’m done,” he admits. “But I’d be lying. I’ll take it year by year. If I still feel like I’ve got more to give after Paris, I don’t think Los Angeles [in 2028] is off the cards. If I could make it five Olympic Games, why wouldn’t I try?”
And with that, Whitlock is back on the pommel horse, blisters and all, spinning ever faster.
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