Gymnastics World Championships 2022: Ireland's Rhys McClenaghan qualifies for pommel horse final

McClenaghan is targeting a second World Championship medal after earning bronze in 2019

Ireland gymnast Rhys McClenaghan scored 15.233 to comfortably secure his place in Saturday's pommel horse final at the World Championships in Liverpool.

Stephen Nedoroscik, the USA's reigning world champion, was second behind McClenaghan in qualifying.

McClenaghan, 23, earned a bronze medal in the 2019 pommel horse event but failed to reach last year's final.

"I'm feeling confident, it felt just like training out there," McClenaghan said after finishing his routine.

"It's good to get qualification over and done with but it's only half the job done."

Ireland's Eamon Montgomery was unable to match team-mate McClenaghan, however, as the Belfast gymnast scored 12.900 to miss out on the floor final, while Ewan McAteer and Dominick Cunningham did not reach the all-round final.

McClenaghan was cheered on by strong Irish support in Liverpool as he began his bid for a second world medal, three years on from becoming Ireland's first World Championship medallist in Stuttgart.

"It's almost like a home competition," he added.

"I know the Irish fans travel worldwide. Even when I was competing in Stuttgart, there were Irish flags all around the arena so I know how amazing those fans are."

McClenaghan won a pommel horse silver medal for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games in August but failed to qualify for the European Championship final two weeks later.

At last year's World Championships in Japan, McClenaghan said organisers wiped chalk off the pommel horse before his qualifying routine as part of the competition's Covid protocols, causing him to slip on the apparatus and miss out on the final.