Max Whitlock, Britain’s most decorated gymnast, has said he is coming out of retirement with the dream of competing at a fifth Olympics at LA 2028.
Whitlock retired following Paris 2024, having announced his plans before the Games, where he narrowly missed out on the podium in the pommel horse.
He will be 35 by the time of the next Olympics in Los Angeles but told The Times that he does not feel ready to retire and feels his career is “unfinished”.
“I’m on a mission and I’m well excited for it,” Whitlock said. “It feels so good to be able to say I’m a gymnast again.”
Whitlock is a six-time Olympic medalist and won two gold medals at Rio 2016. He successfully defended his pommel horse title at Tokyo 2020 but finished fourth in Paris as he attempted to become just the sixth athlete in Olympics history to win gold in the same event at three consecutive Games. He made his Olympics debut at London 2012 aged 19.
He told The Times: “I was sitting in the station with my family in a café [after Paris] and I said to them, 'I'm not done, I can't finish it like that’.
“It was the raw emotion of getting back to the UK and just feeling like I can't end it like that.
“Something just didn't feel right. Unfinished is the exact word. My career's just not complete. It was just really gnawing away at me.
“I thought, 'It's the right time for me to retire but it's not the right way.'
“And that's something that spooks me if I'm really honest because I was pushing it a bit going into Paris in terms of my age. So you can imagine how much I'm pushing it now. It's a massive challenge.”
