Team Ireland’s Rhys McClenaghan secured his place in the Pommel Horse final at the World Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp over the weekend.
McClenaghan qualified in third place and will defend his World Championship title on Saturday 7th October at 3.50pm local time.
“I’m very happy with my performance, it was enough to make the Pommel Horse final, my 3rd World Championships final and my 6th World Championships as well. So I’m happy with how the performance went and I’m looking forward to improving on that performance in the final”.
Teammates Eamon Montgomery, Dominick Cunningham and Adam Steele were also competing in qualifications at the 2023 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Antwerp with their top scores of 12.500 on Floor for Montgomery, 14.366 on Vault for Steele and 13.700 on Floor for Cunningham.
This is my 5th World Championships and I’m very happy with my progression here,” said Cunningham. “Unfortunately I didn’t qualify to compete on all 6 apparatus after a bad Europeans. But I qualified for floor and vault through the World Cup series.”
“I came here to go for my upgraded routines, something I haven’t done for a long time. I felt competitive and I know I can do that bit more and be back competing with the big guns.”
“Floor was great competing new tumbles and I felt good and had good feedback from the judges. Vault I slightly missed my block but it was a vault I haven’t competed since 2019 and just before that doing my Achillies on that vault so it was a good step in the right direction, going into next year to attack the World Cup series and going to do the all around at Europeans so full steam ahead for next year.”
Attention now shifts to the Women’s qualifications which started yesterday and continues through today.
Irish gymnasts Emma Slevin and Halle Hilton compete in the final subdivision, subdivision 10 this evening at 21.15 local time.
The Championships are being streamed on allgymnastics.tv.
