ax Whitlock stepped forward again and successfully defended his Olympic pommel champion at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo.
The 28-year-old took first place in the eight-man final with a score of 15.583, which proved unparalleled. Chih Kai Lee of Chinese Taipei came close with 15.4 and Kazuma Kaya of Japan won the bronze medal.
Ireland’s Les McLennahan and Lee were among the best in qualifying. He withdrew from the competition early in the regular season and did not win a medal.
Whitlock’s sole purpose in sweeping the Rio Olympics was to emulate his Japanese idol Mitsuhei Uchimura and work together to win the all-around championship.
But two disappointing results on the court convinced him to basically turn all his attention to his most successful device for the rest of the Olympic cycle.
Whitlock successfully defended his pommel horse title in Montreal in 2017, but McLennahan confirmed his emergence as a major competitor the following year, when he won his first place at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games A Grand Slam champion.
McLennahan also won the European title in Glasgow, where Whitlock lost, and the Englishman had a difficult year in Qatar, losing to China’s Xiao Ruoteng by a narrow margin.
The following year, Whitlock regained the world championship title in Stuttgart, but he was not intimidated by his apparent decline. He began to feel the benefits of his unique focus.
But during the qualifying session, Whitlock’s challenge became obvious. At that time, he advanced to a relatively low fifth place among the eight finalists. His 14.9 points were easily defeated by McLennahan and Chinese Taipei’s Li Zhikai. , The latter ranked first with 15.266 points. .
During his career, the extremely focused Whitlock responded impeccably, setting a standard that his competitors could not meet again.
