Three-time Olympic champion Max Whitlock reveals he will RETIRE after the Paris Games this summer as the gymnast insists 'the decision feels right' to call time on his glittering career

Three-time Olympic champion Max Whitlock has announced he will retire after this summer’s Games.

The 31-year-old will go for gold on the pommel horse in Paris, where he could become the first gymnast to win four Olympic medals on the same apparatus.

That, though, will now be the last act of a glittering career which has already brought 32 major international medals, including six at the Olympics, making him comfortably Britain’s most successful gymnast of all time.

‘This decision now feels right,’ said Whitlock. ‘Going for my final Olympic Games, it feels very, very strange talking about it and it's almost hard to articulate what it's like. But it's a really nice mindset to be in, to think I'll just give it all I've got.’

Whitlock made his Olympic debut at London 2012, winning a bronze in the pommel horse and in the team event. At Rio 2016, he became Britain’s first individual Olympic champion when he won gold in both the floor and pommel, then also claimed a bronze in the all-around event.

The South Essex athlete retained his pommel horse title at Tokyo 2020 before taking an 18-month break from the sport to focus on his mental health.

Having contemplated retirement then, Whitlock returned to gymnastics at the start of last year. 

He will compete in the European Championships in Italy at the end of the month, before Britain select their squad for Paris in June.

Whitlock, who has a five-year-old daughter Willow, told the BBC: ‘Ever since Rio where I was at my peak age, I think I've had questions thrown at me about when am I retiring.

‘I've wanted to prove people wrong a lot of the way through my journey and I've always had the mindset of trying to do this for as long as I possibly can.

‘Now I've given myself the opportunity for Willow to come and watch an Olympic Games because she couldn't in Tokyo. That's such a good feeling for me.

‘When I'm in arenas competing, Willow waits for it to go quiet and she calls for me and we do this double thumbs-up. I think I'd love to do that in the Paris Olympics.’