My Childhood with Rhys McClenaghan: I was the type of kid who’d try to climb the tallest tree

The Olympic gymnastics champion on the years of gruelling training and his gratitude for all the long hours and many miles his parents spent supporting his career

Rhys with trophies and medals from an underage gymnastics competition.

Olympic champion Rhys McClenaghan can pinpoint the moment he realised he had what it took to achieve the pinnacle of sporting success. It was 2016. He was 16 and he had just placed third in the British Artistic Gymnastics Championships senior pommel horse final.

“Max Whitlock had won gold, and Louis Smith had won silver,” says the now 26-year-old. “The two people who were the best in the world at my sport were standing right beside me. There might have been 0.9 of a mark between us — which is a big gap in gymnastics — but it suddenly hit me that all I had to do was close that gap to become the best in the world.”