Max Whitlock: GB World Championship silver 'unbelievable'

Max Whitlock says helping Great Britain's male gymnasts win their first ever World Championship team medal with silver in Glasgow is "unbelievable".

Whitlock and Dan Purvis' floor routines put GB's six-man team in with a chance of gold, but they missed out to Japan.

"I think we all really pulled together brilliantly. Going in there, we knew we had the potential to try to push for the medals," Whitlock told BBC Essex.

"To actually do it is an unbelievable feeling."

The team of Whitlock, Purvis, Louis Smith, Nile Wilson, Kristian Thomas and Brinn Bevan achieved 270.345 points, 0.473 behind Japan, who won the event for the first time in 37 years.

And, after taking bronze at the London 2012 Olympics, 22-year-old Whitlock says the team are showing signs that they can be serious competitors at the 2016 Games in Rio.

Whitlock [front, second from right], who trains in Basildon, celebrating with his Great Britain team-mates

"The target is always to perform clean routines and that's what we were thinking going into this," Whitlock said.

"We try not to think about medals too much, but obviously doing what we've done in London and on Wednesday shows what our potential is.

"What we'll be doing is going back to the gym, training even harder and hopefully we can put out scores like we did on Wednesday in the lead-up to Rio. Hopefully we can go there with the same confidence."

Whitlock is back in action on Friday in the individual all-around final - where he will be joined by Purvis - and the pair will also compete in the apparatus finals on floor this weekend.

Meanwhile on Thursday, Ruby Harrold and Amy Tinkler go for GB in the women's individual all-around final, while Simone Biles of the United States is aiming for a record third world title in a row.