AND SO RHYS McClenaghan kept his nerve.
Did you ever doubt him?
McClenaghan is a back-to-back world champion, so you probably shouldn’t have. Still, he had to hang around to the final hour for his routine across an exhaustive, day-long qualifier process, at the end of which only eight gymnasts would qualify for the Olympic final next Saturday.
He also had the uncomfortable experience of watching a series of rivals rack up impressive scores, and so knew there was no margin for error. But he knew than anyway.
The pommel horse is a brutally unforgiving discipline: 65 gymnasts compete to qualify for a final with only eight places up for grabs. There is only one chance to get it right: nobody gets any second chances. Getting back on the horse may be a good life philosophy but it’s not one by which the organisers live by.
Gymnastics is an absurdly complex sport to everyone but the obsessives, so as we all watched McClenaghan swoop, spin and swoon across the horse, we were all really awaiting for his own reaction at the end of it all. He dismounted, strode to his coach Luke Carson, and then they turned to face the cameras with a megawatt smile, his teeth as white as the chalk on his hands.
Job done.
The judges confirmed so: 15.200, the joint-best score of the day, tying American Stephen Nedoroscik. McClenaghan scored slightly better on execution, Nedoroscik edged it on difficulty. Both will change up their routines for the final.
“Solid, that was the word Luke was using when I came off”, said McClenaghan after his routine. “That was solid, calm. That’s what you want to be like in that reappearance in the Olympic Games.”
McClenaghan infamously came off the horse in the Olympic final in Tokyo, and was suddenly recast in the role of medal favourite settling for seventh place. That day was an insight for the rest of us into the scary caprice of his sport: a single finger out of place at any moment, and it all goes ka-put.
The pommels on the horse that must bear the gymnast are each just 12cm in size, but the imagery is appropriate, because the Olympic gymnast balances their whole world on a pin.
And so it takes terrifyingly little to knock it off its axis.
The pommel horse is a parable in how frightening it can be to have control, and to have power. If things go wrong, there is nobody else out there to blame. And for McClenaghan, there is no opponent out there who can perform so well that it makes his success impossible.
He knows that if he performs the routine he knows he can perform, he will win an Olympic medal, and it will probably be gold. But consider the flipside to that: if he doesn’t win an Olympic medal, it will be because he hasn’t performed, because he has failed. But he has a routine to deal with the abnormal pressure.
McClenaghan doesn’t watch the gymnast immediately before him: instead he turns his back, closes his eyes, and visualises his routine. This, he says, blurs the sense of occasion and thus the pressure. It’s a reminder to him that this is just another training session. This is all his means of charting the path to the apparatus. Once he slaps his hands onto the pommels, McClenaghan says he is in his “happy place”, as he is not thinking about anything else. The pommels are his portals back to familiarity.
McClenaghan defrays the Olympic pressure is by making it no different to his daily pressure.
“Every single day I go into training”, he said after his round, “I am treating it like a competition and it’s draining, as every day I am nervous. I am putting pressure on myself to perform a routine even though it’s just in front of my coach in an empty gym.
“It felt so familiar out there, that pressure I had on my shoulders, because I do it every day in training.”
But you get the sense that he isn’t heaping this kind of pressure upon himself every day just for an Olympic medal. No, he is chasing a perfection he readily admits is unattainable.
“Of course I want to keep pushing more and more to that perfection that isn’t attainable, really. But we’ll try.
“The perfect 10 is not attainable any more in gymnastics. The judges will always find something. But I want to have them guessing as much as possible.”
From my own perspective, I thought the referee frequently judged the scrums incorrectly. He seemed penalise Connacht, based on what he expected, versus what was occuring on the field. I thought Finlay Bealham used his bind very effectively to twist and tuck Boyle on at least two occasions. Those were clear penalties to Connacht. Denis Buckley meanwhile is exactly the type of low, compact loosehead, that Slimani finds unconfortable to scrummage against.
But the referee felt otherwise…
@Brian Meagher: As a former front rower you are absolutely correct in your assessment…
@Brian Meagher: wasn’t just the ref, touch judges also penalised Connacht and Buckley for going down
@adizlack93: It was a complete team effort. Referee, touch judges and of course TMO.
@Liam Joyce: as another former front rower and coach I totally agree. The officials are only making it up. P.s. I’m a neutral supporter.
@Brian Meagher: that happens in plenty of games. Leinster were on the other side of that against Bristol a few weeks ago for example. That sort of thing isn’t in any way particular to Connacht.
Only in the 2nd half when the game was effectively out of Connachts reach did the officials apply fair play. Some of the stuff that went on in the 1st half when the game should have been in the melting pot was farcical to say the least.
We need to game to go back to only the captain talks to the ref. There’s is no question across the board in rugby the smaller side doesn’t get the breaks like the bigger sides do and conaught as much as any get little or no breaks but saying that you need to create your own luck and they had a very good chance to beat leinster and just didn’t. If the first head clash didn’t warrant a card than the bundee one didn’t either. And this business of rolling around like a soccer player needs to be put to bed too. If a player rolls around holding their head ( bringing attention and looking for a card ) then a HIA should be mandatory.
@chris mcdonnell:
Cian Prendergast asked the Ref on him reacting to the crowd and he was told to shut up…
So Captain speaking was waste of time too..
The first one had no real proof of actual contact… Notice neither player heads go back…
@Jack Dermody: the crowd helped get the incident reviewed no question but he asked the ref basically was he incompetent. No ref or anyone anywhere is going to admit that they were weak enough to be influenced by the crowd.
@chris mcdonnell: Hansen was speaking to the media not the ref
@chris mcdonnell: if you are going to spout away like you know what you are on about please at least spell connacht right
Why does he say ‘nobody is trying to get a Leinster player in trouble’? Because that’s what they are and were doing. Modern rugby. Players and supporters crying out for penalties, cards and suspension.
@Kevin Ryan: the players have turned into a bunch of whingers on and off the field.
Mack won’t be doing media again for a while!
@Kevin Ryan: Ara shtop. You deliberately taking it the wrong way with that talk. It is evidently clear their gripe is ref/tmo consistentsy.
I don’t what to say to you if you truly believe this all a ruse and a web of lies and is infact a big ploy to actually get Leinster players banned.
@Kevin Ryan: they are calling for fairness. The Leinster player was putting himself in trouble with his actions
The irfu seems determined to win silverware by hook or by crook I wonder is dupont available leinster might sign him for 3 months
@Tony McGrath: very witty, good man yourself
@Tony McGrath: we could get our S&C staff to create a heap of injuries and sign him as a medical joker.
@Tony McGrath: complete muppett
I accept Hansen was frustrated. But to back up suggestion that refs are out to get Connacht is classless
@Michael Thompson:
But it seems true… Connacht just don’t get the decisions and Saturday Night was more blatant than normal..
This is not Leinster’s fault and it wasn’t directed at Leinster… What effectively happened on Saturday, the ref was reacting to a large home supporter crowd instead on being impartial. He was clearly intimidated by a crowd that gave a deluge of boos and jeers on a perceived call against them.
This not on Leinster, they are just supporting their team.
@Jack Dermody: if that was true, why did he jump through hoops to not card Ioane, for a very clear shoulder to the head. When the crowd were calling for it. Trying to totally ignore what the TMO was telling him?
Getting sick of Mack Hansen and his King of Banter routine. He should apologise for his disgraceful remarks about the officials. Has no place in rugby football.
@Aidan Farrell:
So how many more years should he say nothing about what is going on blatantly in front of him…
You think he should know his place and let dangerous play go on unpunished…
@Aidan Farrell: so why are you here reading and commenting on an article about him? Take your own advice, sunshine, if you want to censor Hansen from expressing an opinion (checks notes) in an interview…
@Aidan Farrell: you must have a headache Ray disagreeing with yourself online
Whether right or wrong Hansens comments throws a light on the imbalances and will imbue greater equality from refs going forward. There is compelling evidence that Leinster get what is going becasue they have “name players”. Any centre in Ireland outside of the Leinster compliment wouid have seen yellow for Barretts tackle on Aki. Then they torture the data to incriminate Connacht players with lower profiles. So, there is a basis for the claim of injustice. Somebody has to say enough is f..ing enough before change elicits. This rugby etiquette thing cannot be a one way street – fair is fair. I like order but challenge is merited if there is disharmony and shenanigans.
@JJB: Well said spot on…..
Always happens to Connacht
Frank Murphy was the absolute worst
The ref from N ire is terrible as well.
@Derek Casserly: Frank Murphy was an absolute nightmare. But I think he was just a poor ref overall because no provincial supporter’s are happy with him. He ruins good Derby games
@anthony davoren: he was appalling in Connacht matches, went out of his way to prove no bias towards Connacht (as a fast tracked former player who knew many of the squad still playing), instead ended up screwing over Connacht frequently. We also used to get assigned way too frequently the Chagelang brothers, Whitehouse (Son Of, i.e., son of former International ref Nigel Whitehouse, the only reason he got a career out of refereeing). The other Welsh disaster, Leighton Hodges (the lad that cost Pat Lam a €10k fine, after assisting in a robbery by Cardiff of a result back in 2015).
Nevermind the Irish refs who used to regularly hammer us also John Lacey, Peter Fitzgibbon, and god help us if the utterly useless Simon McDowell got the TMO gig for our games, but he was just genuinely useless.
Positive Reinforcement is great but so is negative reinforcement. Referees should be held accountable as well. Rugby is a complex sport and referee’s cherrypicking incidents is bad overall for the sport regardless of your allegiances. I would say that making a reckless ruck clearance with your shoulder is categorically worst that a tackle as at least there is a momentum in the tackle. The dangerous ruck clear outs are always a player rushing in on a player who is stationary. It’s exceptionally dangerous.
Referees should be held accountable. For me the Barrett clear-out was exceptionally dangerous and as a refereeing team each one of those officials should be suspended for 2 rounds of matches or at the very least be only allowed to be bunker or TMO referees for several rounds so they can focus on foul play and the rules of the game.
Yes the ref & officials were asleep during the game. Barrett should have been yeow carded. When an All Black you don’t get punished.
@James Glynn: apart from a world cup final?
If Mack wants to know why they lost on Saturday night, he needs to have a good look in the mirror and stop blaming the officials.
A virtually full strength Connacht team lost to a leinster team that was missing 18 internationals.
@Barry Lynch: Leinster had 12 Irish internationals plus 2 World Cup medals winners in their 23 !!!
Know your place Hansen, you weatern paupers should be damn glad you even exist, nevermind expect the same treatment as superstars! How dare you speak the truth!
Hansens frustrations IMO are borne out of what happened on the night and also it was the same TMO ref combo who missed the reckless tackle that finished his season last year, while after that match he seen his team mate banned for an equally reckless tackle to a player who was playing a few weeks later.
@Thomas Bohan: Yep, how Hodnett didn’t get a red for that assault on Hansen was disgraceful, and absolutely hypocritical given the offences Connacht players received cards for subsequently…
All the booing has to stop Aswell both at the ref and away team leinster are always at it
Well i think it is time for the media back the players after all they are the people who put there bodies on the line during the game there bodies are battered and bruised when the game is over and why would they any other way after a hard battle fought for 80 minutes now the urc officials brought in the safety aspect to the game i think it’s time for the refs and officials to do a course on the safety of the game because they don’t care it’s not there bodies that’s getting battered and bruised to give it there all for the people that travel to the games in support of provinces and entertaining those who watch on tv now media wake up and back the players both men and women rugby
Its fine they’ll make up for it on Friday in thomond.
Lord are we sick of dublin jackasses.supporters and
This might be one of those stories where knowing the question asked is important in interpretation of the answer.