Ireland will have two senior finalists at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Zagreb after Rhys McClenaghan and Eamon Montgomery both secured top-eight places in qualification.
Olympic champion McClenaghan scored 14.400 on Pommel Horse, placing fifth, while Montgomery delivered 14.033 on Floor Exercise to qualify sixth.
For Montgomery, it marks his first European Championship final following his return to international competition earlier this year.
It also continues an encouraging 2026 in which he has already been on a World Cup podium, winning silver on floor at the March Antalya World Cup.
“I was really happy with my routine on floor even before the score came out,” said Montgomery. “I was just glad to get another clean routine under my belt.
“I had some nerves across all-around today, but besides that I’m happy with the other five routines and also proud of the rest of the lads. It was fun going around with them.”
For McClenaghan, Zagreb will bring a fifth European apparatus final, with the Olympic champion believing there is more to come after qualification.
“I’m pleased to have qualified for my fifth European final,” he said.
“There’s definitely room for improvement from qualification, so I’m looking forward to stepping things up in the final. It was also brilliant to see Eamon make his first European floor final, and as a team we showed strong improvement and plenty of positives to build on.”
Depth Building Behind the Headliners
There were encouraging performances deeper within the Irish team as James Hickey and Oisin O’Connell made their senior European Championship debuts, while Adam Steele and Daniel Fox brought considerably greater international experience to the group.
There could also be another important dividend from Zagreb.
Hickey, with an All-Around score of 75.365, and Steele, with 74.298, remain in contention to secure individual qualification places for the World Championships in Rotterdam in October. Official confirmation is expected from European Gymnastics in the coming days.
Ireland completed the team competition with a score of 226.496, placing 21st.
National Coach Sergey Sizhanov highlighted the importance of the blend between the younger athletes and more experienced performers.
He praised Steele and Fox in particular for their leadership throughout the competition, while describing Hickey’s performance on his senior European debut as one capable of delivering a World Championship place.
Gymnastics Ireland Performance and Technical Director Sally Johnson also pointed to the two apparatus finals as evidence of the growing depth within the high-performance programme.
“Great performances for Eamon Montgomery qualifying for the floor final in sixth and Rhys McClenaghan qualifying for pommel horse in fifth are exactly the kind of individual performances that show the depth and quality continuing to come through our programme,” she said.
“The challenge, and the opportunity, is bringing all our individual performances together to convert into a stronger team score.”
McClenaghan remains Ireland’s established global standard-bearer, but Montgomery reaching a first European final, the senior debuts of Hickey and O’Connell, and the possibility of two additional World Championship qualifiers point towards a broader base of athletes competing at this level.
For a high-performance programme, creating that depth alongside the medals won by its leading performers represents meaningful progress.
McClenaghan and Montgomery will compete in the senior apparatus finals on Friday, August 21st, beginning at 5 pm Irish time. The first section of the senior finals runs from 18:00 local time in Zagreb, with European Gymnastics listing the senior finals for streaming on Eurovision Sport where there is no domestic rights holder.
Ireland’s junior team of Robert Ward, Matthew Hickey, Finlay Hazelton and Evan Kinsella is in qualification action today.
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Image Credit: Gymnastics Ireland, Fillipo Tomassi, Sportsfile.
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