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Night Edition available now. Okay,

0:39

I'm down in the Sport Ireland campus. I'm

0:41

with Rhys McLenahan today, who's a double

0:44

European champion and world champion. Rhys, how are you doing?

0:46

I'm doing well. It's been

0:49

a quiet six months, is it fair to say? Not

0:53

so much. In

0:55

terms of the results, it's been exactly

0:58

what I've wanted in this sport.

1:00

Yeah, yeah. How have you been managing

1:02

to deal with it all? It's

1:05

one of those things where you came onto the scene in

1:07

the Europeans. We can talk about Tokyo

1:09

later, but you exploded again after the

1:11

World's. Have you been able to keep away

1:13

from it, keep focused, or how's it been? Yeah,

1:16

I mean, it's a constant game of improvement.

1:18

Improvement of

1:20

my body, my mind. And

1:22

that's just sport in a capsule

1:25

right there. It's

1:27

always finding ways to improve and those ways

1:29

change and alter. I

1:34

get older, I get more mature. It's

1:37

constantly evolving, but it's been a really,

1:40

really successful six months,

1:42

I guess. Would that be last since

1:44

World Championships, about six months now? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:47

So it's exactly what I've wanted

1:49

from the sport and

1:51

I hope it continues. Just

1:53

from the European Championship perspective

1:56

in Turkey a few weeks ago,

1:58

is it a different sort of pressure? Sure, I'm

2:01

not talking from personal experience by any means

2:03

here, but when you're going in first time

2:05

to win and you get it, it's

2:08

a monkey off your back, it's great, okay, I've got over

2:10

the line. Whereas when you're a defending

2:12

champion, I imagine there's a different

2:14

set of pressures. Yeah, I

2:17

guess so. I feel like the

2:19

pressure that I get though is always just for myself

2:21

and not for anyone else. I

2:24

put pressure on myself every day when I go into

2:27

training and perform routines and perform skills.

2:29

When it comes to competitions, it's quite

2:32

a familiar feeling that this

2:34

is just another pressure situation like

2:36

I done yesterday in the gym with a routine.

2:40

It's something I do regularly, so maybe that's

2:42

why I perform so well

2:44

under seemingly a high amount

2:46

of pressure. Yeah, and were you able to take a break

2:48

after Turkey or was it straight back in? I know

2:50

you've talked about sometimes you take the break,

2:53

but you're eager to get back in the gym almost straight

2:55

away. Yeah, and that's what the break is for.

2:57

I did take a break after this championship, let

2:59

the body

2:59

recover and my body was feeling a little bit sore,

3:02

but not injured, which is good. It

3:04

just needed that little bit of time off. So

3:07

I went on holiday, I escaped

3:10

from gymnastics, but now, the

3:12

last couple of days of that holiday, I was thinking, I can't

3:14

wait to go back in that gym now. I'm

3:16

going to become obsessed again about

3:19

gymnastics and I feel like at the next

3:21

competition, you're going to be saying

3:23

the best gymnastics I've done.

3:25

Your close friends and family, are they

3:28

like, you've got to slow down? I know you went

3:30

on a two week break to Lanzarote after the world

3:32

and you're in the gym straight away. Are they,

3:34

they know that this is your dream or do they go,

3:37

look, take the foot off the gas just a little

3:39

bit? Yeah, they're always looking out for me in that way.

3:41

My family are very supportive and just

3:44

want me to be healthy more than anything. But

3:47

it's more like my lifestyle training, even

3:49

the days off, I'm still stretching, still doing

3:51

a little bit of core exercises. It's

3:54

just part of my life and

3:55

I'm glad I was there. I don't think

3:58

I would be able to survive without some sort of a

4:00

of exercise or thoughts about

4:02

the future and improvement in gymnastics. Right.

4:06

So

4:06

taking you back to Turkey, we

4:08

were watching it in the office and it was

4:10

a brilliant routine to delay

4:12

a person. I'm afraid I can't decipher

4:15

really good routines from great routines.

4:19

But you scored 14-666 and

4:22

then I think Maxime Jean

4:24

of Belgium was next and scored 14-566. When

4:27

you're watching that routine, are you looking

4:30

and going, oh,

4:31

oh, I might be in a bother here. Yeah,

4:34

yeah, I guess I was and that's not a position

4:36

I like to be in. I was up first and I had an

4:38

anxious wait until the other seven

4:40

gymnasts went and I knew that

4:42

that was by no means my

4:45

best routine at all. You know, I scored a 15.3 at

4:48

World Championships. That's a big margin, a

4:50

big score difference. And,

4:53

you know, there's a lot of people that can beat that

4:56

14-6 that I got in European.

4:58

So I wasn't sitting there confident

5:01

and comfortable that I'd done my job. It

5:03

was anxious wait. I wanted to win. But

5:06

at the same time, you

5:07

know, what anyone else does is out of

5:09

my control. What anyone else scores is out of my

5:11

control. I was more thinking about how

5:13

I can improve the mistake that I made. And

5:15

that was like splitting my legs in the middle of

5:17

the routine. So I

5:19

was sitting there thinking about how I can improve

5:22

that more than anything. And that must be

5:24

a relief, though, that you know I've done the best that

5:26

I can. I know you're watching everybody

5:28

else and seeing the scores come in and there's a nervy

5:30

wait. But when you go up first, do

5:33

you prefer that almost to be one of the first up and

5:35

just getting it out of the way? Yeah,

5:37

well, it means I can watch the gymnastics. I don't

5:39

watch any gymnastics when

5:41

I'm at the competitions anymore. I don't watch my

5:43

competitors when, you know, we're all warming up

5:46

on the same pommel horse. I turn my back. I

5:48

feel like I can overanalyze other

5:51

people's performances as a gymnastics fan.

5:53

So when I go up first like that, I can sit back and watch

5:56

some gymnastics that I don't normally let myself do,

5:59

which is a...

5:59

It's a nice change, but normally

6:02

you can go up in any position in the final. So

6:05

I'm ready for going up

6:07

first, going up last. I don't mind.

6:10

You talked before about your coach,

6:13

Luke Carson, who has been a

6:15

real help for you over the last couple of years, that

6:18

if he's watching a routine and he sees someone

6:20

record a score, he'll say, just

6:22

throw this skill in and you'll get over the line

6:24

just to add this to your routine. How

6:27

seamless is that? That seems like a really mad thing

6:29

to just throw

6:29

in when you've perfected a routine over

6:32

so much time. Yeah, it's a it's

6:34

a difficult thing to do, but something that we do practice.

6:37

It's not something, you know, it's not him coming to me

6:39

and saying, do this skill. You've never

6:42

done it before, ever just chugging in the

6:44

routine. That was a YouTube video for you. Try

6:46

that. Yeah, it's nothing like that.

6:48

It's things that we've practiced, it's things that we've

6:51

done in a routine before. But they

6:53

just add a bit more risk to the routine.

6:55

The ultimate goal is getting the highest score possible. And

6:59

minimising risk in the routine, too.

7:01

So if something adds too much risk, then,

7:03

you know, it's not worth the reward. But say

7:06

somebody posts a really big score, it's an Olympic

7:08

Games final. The only way I can

7:10

beat that score is by adding in this new skill that

7:12

I've been training. It has to be done.

7:15

And I'm ready for that. So you're ready

7:17

mentally for that. You just say, OK, that's

7:19

what I have to do. There's no sort of hang on a sec.

7:21

You're just in that zone straight away. Yeah.

7:24

And the trust aspect in

7:26

my coach, Luke, is a huge thing. If

7:28

he says, do this skill, I'll 100 percent

7:31

trust him and I'll adjust

7:33

my mind to doing that skill in the routine

7:35

straight away. Whereas I wouldn't I

7:38

wouldn't give any push back in that moment. That would make things

7:40

very chaotic if I'd done

7:41

that. And I that's

7:44

why the partnership and trust between me and look is

7:46

so important. Why

7:48

pommel horse? This is one thing I've always wanted to know.

7:51

Is it just the first day was the first thing you

7:53

touched or was it there was was there just something

7:55

about it that spoke to you? Yeah. So

7:58

every every young gymnast starts.

7:59

doing all of the events in men's

8:02

gymnastics are six and women's there's four. So,

8:05

you know, to start at night

8:07

in gymnastics, you do all six of the events. And that's

8:09

what I'd done all the way up until I was 18. And,

8:13

you know, I made a Commonwealth Games final

8:15

in the all around. I made a junior

8:17

Europeans all around final. I

8:19

was very successful in the all around competition.

8:23

But when I got

8:25

the shoulder surgery in 2018, that

8:27

kind of pushed me into more pommel. I was

8:29

always much better on pommel. OK.

8:32

I need to say that I was I

8:34

was certainly more of a

8:36

standard on pommel horse than than anyone

8:39

else in the country, in the world,

8:41

maybe. So we were always pushing

8:43

for pommel. So when we were coming back from surgery,

8:46

pommel horse was the first thing we were coming back to because

8:48

that would be our Olympic qualification route. So

8:51

and then Covid happened. I

8:53

only had a pommel horse at the house. Then

8:56

have the giant 14 by 14 meter floor

8:58

in my house. So,

9:02

you know, people think it is a choice that

9:04

I chose pommel in a way I did, but it was

9:06

more pushed into it because of that surgery, too. That's

9:09

a weird Covid activity. Like

9:10

for me, it was Mario Kart. So

9:13

that's a bizarre one. And

9:15

so but that's that's really interesting that pommel

9:19

horse

9:21

is very much focused on your shoulder. And that's

9:23

the key thing at work. So after the surgery,

9:25

you found that actually this was more

9:27

your thing. Yeah, well, it was just

9:29

it was the most probable way

9:31

of qualifying to Olympics. And

9:35

dealing with one event over six events

9:37

is much nicer, especially the

9:39

still rings. They are not good for your shoulders

9:41

in any way. So that's the that was pretty

9:43

much like the last thing that my surgeon was giving

9:46

me the OK for. So we decided that

9:48

the pommel horse that would be the most probable for

9:50

it

9:51

of qualifying. And we did. How

9:53

do you get over the sort

9:55

of like, how do you mentally prepare for

9:57

that striving for perfection?

9:59

because anyone who watches gymnastics, you can see

10:02

there's a heavy amount of execution, the

10:04

difficulty score comes in, it also has to

10:06

look quite nice aesthetically. So how

10:09

do you prepare yourself just generally for that

10:11

striving perfection? Yeah,

10:13

so gymnastics is mostly doing

10:16

difficult things and trying to make them

10:18

look easy. They're not by

10:20

any means, but my job

10:22

on the pommel horse is to make me

10:24

look as light as a feather and

10:27

make it look effortless and a

10:29

lot of that is video analysis,

10:31

looking at the rules of

10:33

gymnastics, seeing what the judges are looking

10:36

for, that's a big part of it and

10:39

just repetition, numbers, making things be

10:41

natural, that's essentially

10:44

aren't and constructing

10:46

this routine to make it look like I've

10:49

just got this naturally, like I just jumped on the pommel

10:52

horse and I've just really got the hang of it. Pulled

10:54

off the street. Yeah, but in

10:56

reality, every tiny, tiny

10:58

movement in that routine I knew

10:59

inside out. And

11:02

that intensity of practice, how

11:04

are you able to switch off from that when you come out of the gym

11:06

or is that just always on your mind?

11:09

It's on my mind a lot of the time,

11:11

especially coming closer to competitions and

11:13

the skills become more and more refined.

11:16

I'm thinking about it constantly, I'm

11:18

obsessed, but I really enjoy

11:20

that feeling because it's like that

11:22

obsession is getting me closer and closer to my goals.

11:25

Right, so you're not at like Agassi type

11:27

where it's as soon as I come off the court, I don't want to think about

11:30

tennis. Agassi. Like Andre Agassi.

11:32

Oh, okay. Do you, it's

11:35

just 24-7 gymnastics for you? Yeah,

11:37

yeah, I guess so. I mean, it's

11:39

good to take a step back from gymnastics

11:42

and just focus

11:44

on normal life. That's just healthy

11:46

for the mind, isn't it? But

11:50

it certainly takes over my life and

11:53

gymnastics has been my life for ever

11:56

since I started, maybe even before

11:58

I started gymnastics.

11:59

but I just find it hard

12:02

to switch off for sure. When you

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12:19

Since the 2020 Olympics,

12:21

I mean, before that you were going in high

12:23

hopes. I know COVID might have had an effect

12:26

on like your preparation for that, but

12:28

you were really hoping for medals. There

12:30

was a real youthful energy to how

12:32

you were approaching it. Since then, there's been

12:34

a bit more maturity talking

12:37

about, okay, this is great. Every time

12:39

you win a medal, this is great, but I'm on to the next

12:41

thing and I'm just keeping focused.

12:44

Is that fair to say that

12:46

you felt that was a real formative experience,

12:48

the way that games went in terms of

12:51

your expectations, perhaps your

12:54

naivety going in? You changed

12:57

your outlook since then, basically? No.

13:00

I mean, I've

13:02

matured as a person, but that's only natural, isn't

13:05

it? But

13:07

it's not like I take

13:09

back my words when

13:12

I fall in the Olympic Games final. I wasn't

13:14

standing there saying, I shouldn't have said

13:16

I was going for gold. I was

13:18

going for gold. Obviously, I'm

13:20

still going for gold. A year later,

13:23

I won World Championships. The best

13:25

in the world. It wasn't like I

13:27

all of a sudden snapped back into reality. I

13:30

shouldn't have thought about that. I'm

13:33

still going for gold. I'm still going for gold in every

13:35

competition I do. And hopefully,

13:39

you'll always hear me say that. If you

13:41

don't hear me say that, then it might be a sad day

13:44

for me. Maybe I'm coming to retirement if I'm

13:46

starting to say, I'm just going there to participate. But

13:49

I don't think I was

13:51

naive. I knew I was capable of winning gold

13:54

at the Tokyo Olympics. And maybe

13:57

what I did gain was more of an understanding

13:59

of what can happen. in sports, what can happen

14:01

in gymnastics. An

14:04

example, the greatest gymnast of all time, Kohei

14:07

Chumura, a Japanese gymnast, he

14:09

fell off high bar at that same Olympics

14:11

that are home games and in

14:13

qualification at that. It's just what

14:15

can happen in the sport, just like it

14:19

can happen that Tiger Woods hits the ball

14:21

into the pond and the bushes. It's

14:25

what happens in skill sports as well mostly.

14:27

I've started to see a difference in skill sports and

14:30

maybe sports like

14:33

endurance running or things

14:35

that are just mostly physical attributes with

14:38

one motion running. Skill

14:40

sports are a lot more intricate, a lot more can go wrong.

14:43

It's like a car engine, there's

14:45

so many moving parts, there's so many things that can go

14:47

wrong. Yeah,

14:48

but

14:49

skill sports like golf, if you miss

14:51

a shot or it hits the pond, you

14:54

have however many strokes to maybe

14:56

regain the lead or get back

14:58

up to level power or birdie, you're 45 seconds

15:01

in pommel horse. How do you square that?

15:03

How are you ready for that? Yeah, I guess

15:05

it's part of the sport and

15:08

you just gotta accept some things. And

15:11

yeah, you're very right, but there's some

15:13

things like maybe European

15:15

Championships is a good example where it

15:17

was kind of in the middle of the routine where I made that

15:19

leg split and I recuperated

15:22

it, I done the rest of the routine good,

15:24

I done the dismount good. That was enough

15:27

to pull it back. If I let that domino

15:29

effect happen where one thing goes wrong

15:31

or the next thing goes wrong, the next goal goes wrong, and

15:33

then all of a sudden I'm off the horse, then

15:37

that wouldn't have been pulling it back. Maybe that was my

15:41

nine other holes that I pulled back for

15:44

me was finishing that routine in style and

15:47

making up the points. So it's

15:49

a shorter time for sure, but it can be done

15:52

to come back. And keeping that confidence,

15:54

is it Luke you're talking to? Is

15:56

it entirely self-driven? Are you talking to

15:58

anybody outside the sport who can kind of go.

15:59

put these things into perspective for you.

16:02

How are you preparing for that? I'm

16:04

always learning about psychology.

16:07

I work with Jesse Barr as my

16:09

psychologist. I work

16:11

with Luke obviously. He's one of my psychologists.

16:14

And then of course I'm just always trying to improve mentally.

16:17

Because when it comes down to doing that routine, that's

16:20

all your mind. You're physically prepared. You're

16:23

not gonna get any stronger in the days leading up to

16:26

this competition. All of that physical preparation

16:28

has been done. Now it's time

16:29

to keep your mind focused. The

16:32

Commonwealth Games I wanna bring up because that was

16:34

a very interesting period, especially right

16:37

now with the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday

16:39

Agreement. So you were

16:42

deemed by the FIG to be ineligible to

16:44

represent Northern Ireland, having represented Ireland

16:46

before. And you appealed this

16:48

decision and it led to you reading the Good Friday Agreement

16:50

and getting up to speed with your

16:53

case. And eventually that was overturned and you were able

16:55

to compete. But

16:57

it's something that comes up quite a bit

17:00

for athletes who represent Ireland from

17:02

the North, like your Kieran Beggins, your

17:04

Rory McElroy, is this sense

17:07

of identity. Is that something you're

17:09

comfortable with now? Do you understand

17:12

now how you can address that in the

17:14

future that, no, this is why I'm representing

17:16

Ireland. I'm happy to talk about it. Or is

17:19

it just second nature? Do you not try to think about it? No,

17:22

it's certainly something because it is

17:24

part of my identity is that

17:27

the North and South, everyone

17:33

has their own personal identity and I

17:35

think that's what I've kind of learned over the past

17:38

year or so there when I guess

17:40

my identity was more or less challenged when

17:43

it came to my eligibility. And

17:46

I feel like personal identity, the key

17:48

word being personal, was a big

17:51

learning curve for me that I needed to realize

17:53

that only I've experienced growing

17:57

up in my house, growing up in the South.

17:59

in this island, in this part

18:02

of the country. It's all very personal.

18:05

And I can certainly

18:07

converse with other people, learn from other people's experiences.

18:10

But at the end of the day, it's always gonna be

18:12

my personal identity, which is

18:14

an interesting point for sure. Yeah.

18:17

So let's get on to the rest of the year. You've and

18:19

worked to look forward to the end of September. What's

18:22

the preparation like now for the next six months?

18:24

So you're going away, have you got competition?

18:26

Is it just gonna be Ireland-based? How

18:29

are you preparing

18:29

for that? Yeah, so I'm jumping

18:32

straight back into training with that Olympic

18:34

Games qualification in mind. And

18:37

as I said, I feel like you're gonna see the

18:39

best gymnastics I've done at that world championship.

18:42

So I'm gonna let myself become obsessed

18:44

again. I'm going to really focus

18:46

in on everything and

18:48

get the job done again, and

18:50

hopefully qualify to my second Olympic

18:52

Games where I have that amazing opportunity

18:55

to compete in Paris. And on those

18:57

Olympics, just final one, Max Whitlock

18:59

is

18:59

currently returning to form

19:02

as well. I know he's not at the greatest start of the year,

19:05

but he's your friend, your rival. He's the defending

19:07

Olympic champ. Have you been

19:09

onto him saying, look, maybe just hold off 18 months

19:12

there and let me get over the line first?

19:14

No, I don't know anything about what Max is doing.

19:18

So

19:18

yeah, I don't know much about

19:21

my other competitors, if I'm honest, because, and

19:23

I wouldn't say that that's naive. It's just that

19:26

I've learned all I can

19:28

from them. Now I feel like I'm

19:30

kind of on my own. And if anything,

19:32

I'm looking back on old

19:34

videos of me training and learning

19:37

from myself. It's just a

19:39

classic, it's me against me

19:41

type thing. My competition's

19:43

in the mirror. And I

19:46

can't control what anybody else is doing in

19:48

the world. And I

19:51

honestly, I

19:52

don't really think about the

19:54

likes and mocks anymore. Well,

19:57

best of luck for the next six months.

19:59

Hopefully we'll be talking soon,

20:03

maybe with another world goal for you to show us. I

20:05

hope so. Rees-McClannan, thanks for your time today. Thank

20:07

you. OCB AM

20:10

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