British Gymnastics Championships 2024: Max Whitlock wins men's pommel horse title
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British Gymnastics Championships: Max Whitlock wins pommel gold at British Championships
Max Whitlock says "it feels good to be back" after winning pommel horse gold at the British Championships.
The three-time Olympic champion stepped up preparations as he aims to defend his pommel title in Paris this summer.
Whitlock, 31, took a year out after the Tokyo Olympics and returned to finish fifth at the 2023 World Championships in his favoured discipline.
"It feels crazy we are in Olympic year now - it feels like 2024 has really started," he said in Liverpool.
"It feels good, it feels good to be back. Since Tokyo it has been a bit of a rollercoaster for me, with a year out of the sport then coming back in."
Next up is the European Championships in Rimini, Italy, at the end of April, before the British Olympic gymnastics squad is announced in June, a month before the start of the Paris Games.
Whitlock, who also won gold on the pommel horse and floor at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, produced an excellent pommel horse routine on Sunday to claim the British title - and went on to finish third in the horizontal bars and fourth in the parallel bars.
His pommel score of 15.250 was well ahead of British team-mate Jake Jarman, who was second with 14.150, while Joe Fraser, reigning Commonwealth Games champion on pommel horse, had to settle for bronze with 13.950.
Fraser, 25, won the men's all-around title on Saturday as he stepped up his comeback from injury and added gold in the parallel bars in Sunday's apparatus finals.
Jarman, 22, won his two specialist events - the floor and vault - and also the horizontal bars, while Harry Hepworth, 20, followed up recent good form on the World Cup circuit with gold in the men's rings, finishing ahead of Commonwealth Games champion Courtney Tulloch, who was second.
Ondine Achampong stepped up her Olympic preparations with some stunning performances over the weekend in the women's competitions.
The 20-year-old, who helped Britain to team silver at the 2022 World Championships and European gold last year, won Saturday's all-around competition after defending champion Alice Kinsella pulled out with an arm injury.
Achampong then added gold in the uneven bars, beam and floor in the individual apparatus finals to complete a clean sweep of victories across all the finals she competed in over the championships.
Shannon Archer, 25, won the women's vault - the only apparatus final for which Achampong did not qualify.
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