Rhys McClenaghan hails "greatest achievement" after winning gold at World Gymastics Championships

The Newtownards man becomes his country’s first world gymastics champion after dominating on the pommel horse, three years after he won Ireland’s first medal at the event when he clinched bronze in Stuttgart in 2019.

McClenaghan will now build towards the Paris 2024 Olympics, when he will be looking to mount an assault for the gold medal.

“This has been a long time coming,” he said.

“It has been a difficult year but I’m glad I could finish it off with my greatest achievement ever.

“It’s something I’ve dreamed of for many years. I’ve dedicated my life to this sport and to be world champion makes it all worthwhile.

“It just proves to myself and many others I’m still capable of going there and winning Olympic gold, which is a very exciting thought.

“I know I can perform under this immense pressure and I can do the same in Paris.”

This year, McClenaghan had set his sights on challenging for three gold medals but his silver at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham was followed by a shock exit in qualifying for the European Championship.

However, he turned his fortunes aroun in style and upped his difficulty for Saturday’s finale, when his score of 15.300 was comfortably the highest after several of his rivals suffered falls in the final.

“The extra turn on the dismount requires a bit of extra guts,” McClenaghan said.

“I knew it would be a tough challenge but Stephen [Nedoroscik] matched my score in qualification and I didn’t want that to happen, so I upped the difficulty to make sure I could secure that gold medal.

“There were mistakes but that’s pommel horse. We’ve seen the amount of Olympic champions falling this week, these great names making mistakes – that’s gymnastics.

“I know that’s the way it can happen. It happened to me at the Olympic final. You just learn from them – if you don’t, you can’t go to the next competition and improve,” he added.

“That’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve learned from all the mistakes I had and put them all into this routine.”

Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud was second with Harutyun Merdinyan from Armenia claiming bronze.