Rhys Joshua McClenaghan (born 21 July 1999) is an artistic gymnast from

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

who competes internationally both for Ireland and Northern Ireland. McClenaghan is widely recognised as one of the best

pommel horse The pommel horse, also known as vaulting horse, is an artistic gymnastics apparatus. Traditionally, it is used by only male gymnasts. Originally made of a metal frame with a wooden body and a leather cover, the modern pommel horse has a metal bo ...

specialists of his generation. He is the 2024 pommel horse

Olympic champion This article includes lists of all Olympic medalists since 1896, organized by each Olympic sport or discipline, and also by Olympiad. Medalist with most medals by sport Summer Olympic sports Sports that will appear in the 2028 Summer Olympics ar ...

, the first gymnast to win an Olympic medal for Ireland. McClenaghan is also a double world champion on the pommel horse, having won gold in

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

and

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

. He is the first Irish artistic gymnast to win world championship gold, having also been the first Irish gymnast to win a world medal with bronze in 2019. He is a three-time European champion representing Ireland and a Commonwealth Games champion representing Northern Ireland. McClenaghan was the first Irish gymnast to compete in a European final and also the first to win any European medal. He is the only gymnast to become Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth champion on a single apparatus. In

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

, McClenaghan became the first Irish gymnast to qualify for a world championships final and also to win a medal (bronze). He also competed for Northern Ireland at the

2018 Commonwealth Games The 2018 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXI Commonwealth Games and also known as Gold Coast 2018, were an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth that was held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, bet ...

, winning

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

. He followed this by winning the

2018 European Championships The 2018 European Championships were the first edition of the European Championships (multi-sport event), European Championships. It was a multi-sport event which took place in Berlin, Germany, and Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom (with Edinburg ...

. In

, McClenaghan won a second European title and retained the world title. His third European crown came in Rimini in 2024. McClenaghan was named RTÉ's Sportsperson of the Year for 2023. Along with dance partner Laura Nolan he won the 8th series of

Dancing with the Stars ''Strictly Come Dancing (widely known as Dancing with the Stars)'' is an international television franchise based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing,'' itself a successor to the show ''Come Dancing'' (1950–1998) ...

in March 2025.

Early life

McClenaghan was born in

Newtownards Newtownards (; ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the most northern tip of Strangford Lough, 10 miles (16 km) east of Belfast, on the Ards Peninsula. It is in the Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish of Newtow ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, to Tracy, a nursery school teacher, and Danny McClenaghan, a builder. He has an older brother, Elliot. By age six, he already displayed a precocious aptitude for gymnastics and started training at Rathgael Gymnastics Club in Bangor. McClenaghan later attended Regent House School in Newtownards. He has been coached by close friend Luke Carson for many years.

Career

As an athlete from Northern Ireland, McClenaghan is eligible to compete for either Great Britain or Ireland in international competition, and for Northern Ireland at the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games is a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, which consists mostly, but not exclusively, of territories of the former British Empire. The event was first held in 1930 ...

only. Though he competed in the British gymnastics system as a youth, he opted to compete for Ireland in international competition, saying, " Gymnastics Ireland supported me the most, and that’s what made me go that route." While still technically a junior, he won the bronze medal in the 2016 British Artistic Gymnastics Championships pommel horse final behind Olympic medalists Louis Smith and

Max Whitlock Max Antony Whitlock (born 13 January 1993) is an English artistic gymnast. With fourteen medals and six titles in Olympic and World Championships, Whitlock is the most successful gymnast in British history. He is also the most successful pomme ...

. McClenaghan also won Ireland's first European Championships medal, earning silver on the pommel horse at the 2016 Junior European Gymnastics Championship. At the

held at the Gold Coast,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, McClenaghan won gold on the

, beating reigning world and Olympic champion Whitlock by dint of higher execution score, after tying on overall scores. It was Northern Ireland's first medal for an artistic gymnast at the Commonwealth Games. At the

, McClenaghan won the gold medal and became Ireland's first-ever European champion. After his coach, Luke Carson, was made redundant by the Rathgael club in June 2018, McClenaghan was forced to train in his back garden for a short period. He then relocated to Dublin during the week,'Rhys McClenaghan: NI gymnast back home in Newtownards for Olympic Games build-up'
BBC Sport, 23 May 2023. Retrieved 6 August 2024 upon receiving funding and accommodation from Gymnastics Ireland and

Sport Ireland Sport Ireland (), formerly the Irish Sports Council, is a statutory authority that oversees, and partly funds, the development of sport within Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is located at the National Sports Campus in the townland of Sheephill ...

to train in the Sport Ireland Institute in

Abbotstown Abbotstown () is a townland in the civil parish of Castleknock in Fingal, Ireland. It is also the name of an historical demesne and country estate that is close to Blanchardstown. Historically the estate belonged to a number of aristocratic famil ...

. In October 2019, he won Ireland's first

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

medal, bronze on the pommel horse, making him the most decorated Irish gymnast of all time. McClenaghan was awarded the

British Empire Medal The British Empire Medal (BEM; formerly British Empire Medal for Meritorious Service) is a British and Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth award for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Monarchy of the United Ki ...

(BEM) in the

2021 New Year Honours The 2021 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebratio ...

for services to gymnastics. McClenaghan competed in the

Tokyo 2020 Olympics The officially the and officially branded as were an international multi-sport event that was held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on 21 July 2021. Tokyo ...

, where he came in seventh place in the men's pommel horse final. In 2022 McClenaghan, along with fellow gymnasts

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and Ewan McAteer, was banned from competing for Northern Ireland at the

2022 Commonwealth Games The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Birmingham 2022, were an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations that took place in Birmingham, England betw ...

by the

International Gymnastics Federation The International Gymnastics Federation ( French: ''Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique'', abbr. FIG) is the body governing competition in all disciplines of gymnastics. Its headquarters is in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was founded on 23 ...

(FIG) as he had previously competed internationally for Ireland. The FIG suggested the trio should renounce their Irish nationality on their gymnastics licences, or that the

Commonwealth Games Federation The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), currently known as Commonwealth Sport, is the international organisation responsible for the direction and control of the Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth Youth Games, and is the governing body ...

remove the relevant event from that summer's Games programme. The decision was met with backlash from politicians including Sir

Brandon Lewis Sir Brandon Kenneth Lewis (born 20 June 1971) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor from September to October 2022. He previously served as Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2018 to 201 ...

Deirdre Hargey Deirdre Hargey (born 1980) is an Irish Sinn Féin politician who has been a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast South since 2020. She previously served as Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2018 to 2019, and as a Belfast City Co ...

and

Leo Varadkar Leo Eric Varadkar ( ; born 18 January 1979) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach from 2017 to 2020 and from 2022 to 2024, as Tánaiste from 2020 to 2022, and as leader of Fine Gael from 2017 to 2024. A Teachta Dála, ...

, as well as from Commonwealth Games NI, which accused the FIG of "completely disregarding" the

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement ( or ; or ) is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April (Good Friday) 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland since the la ...

, which recognised the right of Northern Irish people to be both British and Irish (McClenaghan had competed regularly at both the British and the Irish national championships.). The trio were ultimately given special dispensation by the FIG allowing them to compete in Birmingham. McClenaghan resumed training in his home town of Newtownards when Carson opened a new gym in spring 2023. In the

2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...

, McClenaghan won the gold medal in the

, with a score of 15.533. It was the first-ever Olympic gymnastics medal for Ireland.

Media career

He competed in series 8 of

alongside professional dance partner Laura Nolan. On 16 March 2025 the pair were announced as winners of the show.'Rhys McClenaghan 'reeling in' the Dancing with the Stars win'
BBCNI, 16 March 2025. Retrieved 17 March 2025

Competitive history

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:McClenaghan, Rhys 1999 births Living people Irish male artistic gymnasts Sportspeople from Newtownards Commonwealth Games gold medallists for Northern Ireland Gymnasts at the 2018 Commonwealth Games Gymnasts at the 2022 Commonwealth Games Recipients of the British Empire Medal Medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships European champions in gymnastics Gymnasts at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic gymnasts for Ireland Commonwealth Games silver medallists for Northern Ireland World champion gymnasts Medallists at the 2018 Commonwealth Games Medallists at the 2022 Commonwealth Games Gymnasts at the 2024 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2024 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for Ireland 21st-century sportsmen from Northern Ireland RTÉ Sports Person of the Year winners Commonwealth Games gold medallists in gymnastics Commonwealth Games silver medallists in gymnastics