Pommelled Horse, Men

The men’s pommelled horse competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics featured a great line-up of pre-event favorites. Ireland’s Rhys McClenaghan entered as the 2022 and 2023 World Champion, having placed seventh in Tokyo. Great Britain’s Max Whitlock, the two-time defending Olympic champion, returned in hope of becoming the first male gymnast to medal at four consecutive Olympics. The 2021 World Champion, Stephen Nedoroscik, was also present. The American became better known worldwide as “Pommel Horse Guy”, being successful in the event despite very poor vision, wearing Coke-bottle glasses, and a lack of depth perception. Ahmad Abu Al-Soud was Jordan’s first ever Olympic gymnast, and with silver and bronze at the last two Worlds, he was also considered a medal threat.

Unfortunately for the Jordanian, he fell twice during qualifying and failed to make the final. First to go in the final was Kazakhstan’s Nariman Kurbanov. A two-time Asian champion, he had not yet medaled in a global tournament but had been fourth at the 2021 and 2022 World Championships. His 15.433 was much higher than any of the qualifying scores, and most of the finalists would not surpass it. Whitlock, starting second, had the highest difficulty at 6.9, but could not convert that into a medal score, eventually settling for fourth. McClenaghan then posted a personal top score of 15.533 to take the top position, followed by Nedoroscik, who pushed Whitlock off the podium.

Both gold and silver medalists won the first ever Olympic gymnastics medals for their countries, Ireland and Kazakhstan respectively. Whitlock’s narrow miss of the podium marked the first time since 2008 that Britain did not medal in this event.