IT was an afternoon packed with drama as the Great Britain men’s gymnastics team embarked on a hard-fought battle for medals at the Glasgow 2018 European Championships.
The quintet of Max Whitlock, James Hall, Dominick Cunningham, Joe Fraser and Courtney Tulloch won silver at the SSE Hydro after a fierce head-to-head with eventual winners Russia.
GB led for the first two rotations after confident openers on floor and pommel horse. At the halfway stage it remained tight at the top of the standings with Turkey in first place on 127.996, Russia second with 127.297 and GB third on 127.131.
But Russia started to pull away after vault and cemented that lead on parallel bars. They topped the standings going into the final rotation, 1.132 marks ahead of GB.
It all came down to a nail-biting finale on high bar where falls from Cunningham and Hall put paid to any lingering hopes for gold. In the end GB had to settle for silver finishing on 253.362 with Russia taking gold on 257.260 and France claiming bronze on 246.928.
Cunningham was philosophical. “Even when I slipped on bar, not just once but twice, the crowd got behind me and I thought: ‘Keep fighting.’ I don’t know what happened to my [hand] guards. Those guards will be going in the river later.”
Today’s individual apparatus finals will see a much-anticipated tussle on pommel horse between reigning Olympic and two-time world champion Whitlock and Ireland’s Rhys McClenaghan who pipped the GB star to gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Whitlock scored 14.433 on pommel horse in the team final – compared to 14.900 in qualifying – yet insisted that he still came away having drawn confidence from his performance.
“It has shown that I need to push my pommel routine as much as I can and go all out,” he said. “I look back at London 2012 and I had the mindset of go all out, give it your best shot and we’ll see what happens. That is what I have got to do every single competition.”
All five GB men have qualified for finals with Fraser set to compete on parallel bars and high bar, Cunningham on floor, Tulloch on rings and Hall on high bar.
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