Name: Rhys McClenaghan
Event: Gymnastics - men's pommel horse
Age: 25 (Will turn 26 on the 21st July)
McClenaghan secured his spot at the Paris Games when becoming World Champion in the Men's pommel in October 2023. This was the sole automatic qualification event for his event.
Earlier this year the Newtownards native won his third European gold with a score of 15.300. The Down man goes into the Olympics with a weight of expectation on his shoulders given all that he's achieved in the last few years.
Since his breakthrough claiming Commonwealth gold in 2018, McClenaghan has eight international medals to his name and back-to-back world titles in 2022 and 2023.
McClenaghan started gymnastics when he was aged six with Rathgael GC and trained at the National Gymnastics Training Centre in Dublin from 2018 to 2023 but has trained at home, in Origins Gymnastics Centre in Newtownards, since mid-2023.
A finger misplacement and subsequent fall off the apparatus saw him finish seventh in Tokyo and will be fuel for the fire going in to his second Olympic Games.
