(Reuters) -Three-times Olympic gold medallist Max Whitlock is coming out of retirement to target a place at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, the 32-year-old Briton said on Monday.
Whitlock had previously said the 2024 Olympics would be his last but he felt his career was “incomplete” after missing out on a podium place in Paris.
“I’m officially back, I’m a gymnast again, and that feels crazy. Something was itching away at me constantly, it has been for the last year, it feels unfinished, incomplete,” Whitlock said on the BBC’s The One Show.
“So I’m going back in, a three-year stint, I want to make it to my fifth Olympic Games. I know it’s a dangerous game to play, but I want to finish it on a high, I want to rewrite the end of my career. “
Whitlock, who will be 35 when the LA Games begin, won gold in the floor exercise and pommel horse at Rio in 2016 and another pommel horse gold in Tokyo in 2021.
Whitlock said it would be a challenge to return to the elite level after his break, especially with younger competitors rising through the ranks and with major events ahead including the British Championships and the Commonwealth Games coming up next year.
“I had a year out completely, I’ve come back in slowly,” he said. “The other week I picked up an injury … Who knows what’s to come.”
(Reporting by Shifa Jahan in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
