Rhys McClenaghan
Rhys Joshua McClenaghan is an artistic gymnast from Northern Ireland who competes internationally both for Ireland and Northern Ireland. McClenaghan is widely recognised as one of the best pommel horse specialists of his generation.
He is the 2024 pommel horse Olympic champion and 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 and 2023. 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.
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 in March 2025.
He missed all gymnastic competitions in 2025 due to injury.
Early life
McClenaghan was born in Newtownards, County Down, 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 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. McClenaghan also won Ireland's first European Championships medal, earning silver on the pommel horse at the 2016 Junior European Gymnastics Championship.
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games held at the Gold Coast, Australia, McClenaghan won gold on the [Gymnastics at the 2018 in artistic gymnastics|2018 Gymnastics at the 2018 Commonwealth Games|Commonwealth Games – Men's pommel horse|pommel horse], 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 2018 European Championships, 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, upon receiving funding and accommodation from Gymnastics Ireland and Sport Ireland to train in the Sport Ireland Institute in Abbotstown.
In October 2019, he won Ireland's first World Championship medal, bronze on the pommel horse, making him the most decorated Irish gymnast of all time.
McClenaghan was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to gymnastics.
McClenaghan competed in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where he came in seventh place in the men's pommel horse final.
In 2022 McClenaghan, along with fellow gymnasts Eamon Montgomery and Ewan McAteer, was banned from competing for Northern Ireland at the 2022 Commonwealth Games by the International Gymnastics Federation 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 remove the relevant event from that summer's Games programme. The decision was met with backlash from politicians including Sir Brandon Lewis, Deirdre Hargey and Leo Varadkar, as well as from Commonwealth Games NI, which accused the FIG of "completely disregarding" the Good Friday Agreement, which recognised the right of Northern Irish people to be both British and Irish. 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.
At the 2024 Summer Olympics, McClenaghan won the gold medal in the pommel horse, with a score of 15.533. It was the first-ever Olympic gymnastics medal for Ireland.
McClenaghan was unable to compete at all in 2025 due to injury and shoulder surgery undertaken in June of that year; he missed both the European and World Championships.
McClenaghan was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2026 New Year Honours for services to gymnastics.
In January 2026, he was awarded the freedom of the Borough of Ards and North Down.