International gymnastics judge Mairéad Kavanagh is backing Rhys McClenaghan to win gold in this afternoon's Olympics pommel horse final, with the draw a huge advantage for the County Down gymnast.
The places were predetermined by a draw before qualifying took place last Saturday, with McClenaghan the fourth of eight to perform at Bercy Arena, in what is expected to be one of the most competitive of the gymnastics finals.
Three years ago in Tokyo, when McClenaghan fell off the pommel on his way to seventh, the early performance from Max Whitlock of Britain had set the tone for the competition.
"Max was first up in Tokyo, he got an absolutely huge score and the judges had nowhere to go on execution score," Kavanagh said on the latest episode of the RTE Olympics Podcast. "In my opinion they went out too high."
Kavanagh believes this final will be different, with the emphasis placed on execution rather than difficulty, which is to the advantage of McClenaghan.
"Nariman Kurbanov is from Kazakhstan and he is extremely clean as well and can produce a very high difficulty rating, 6.6, 6.7, and he is up first.," said Kavanagh.
"I think that is a very good draw for Rhys because he is clean. We don't want him to go too clean, but if he goes clean, he is a tall gymnast and he'll look good," she said of the Kazakh.
"He's the first gymnast the judges will have seen and beforehand the judges will have been told in the meeting they have to separate the gymnasts and the only way they can separate them is on the execution.
"Clean routines score high, and take deductions for routines that aren't as clean. So you'll expect him to get a good execution score.
Second Max will go and Max is a totally different gymnast, really difficult routine but he is not as clean, so they'll have to pull him apart to separate those two gymnasts.
"Up next we have Loran (de Munck) from Netherlands, also clean, so another clean score. They'll be ranking the execution as they go, so they'll have to post another clean score for Loran if he's clean.
"And then Rhys is fourth, so you have the cleanest pommel horse worker up fourth after the judges have had a good run of clean versus not so clean and if he does what he did in training, they'll have to go the highest score they can award so far," said Kavanagh.
"The draw he has got is fantastic.
"Stephen (Nedoroscik) from USA is fifth, he is also clean but not as clean as Rhys.
"So for me, my heart and head would say, Rhys will be first, Max second and Kurbanov or Stephen third."
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