EAMON Montgomery believes Rhys McClenaghan has done far more than win Olympic and world titles – he has knocked down the mental barrier to Irish gymnasts reaching the top.
The pair are friends, training partners and part of the Irish team preparing for the men’s European Championships that starts tomorrow in Zagreb.
But Montgomery sees McClenaghan’s trailblazing career as having a Rory McIlroy effect on others coming through now, just as it inspired his own journey.
“It’s not even the Olympic gold, although that’s obviously Rhys’ biggest achievement,” said the Belfast man.
“Back in 2018 when he won his Commonwealth medal, and then in 2019 when he got his first world medal, I thought, ‘He can do it’, and that started the cogs turning in my head and made me believe I could do it too.
“It unlocks the path. Before that everyone’s thinking, ‘No way’. But once someone you know does it, it knocks the wall down.”
7 August 2026; Eamon Montgomery during the Gymnastics Ireland content gathering day at the Sport Ireland National Gymnastics Training Centre in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile (David Fitzgerald / SPORTSFILE/SPORTSFILE)
Montgomery (23) and McClenaghan (27) train together at their coach Luke Carson’s Origin gym in Newtownbreda and regularly make the journey to the National Gymnastics Training Centre in Blanchardstown to join their Ireland team-mates.
“You see it in other sports too,” said Montgomery.
“Somebody does well, like when Rory McIlroy wins a major, and the other Irish golfers think, ‘Hang on, I can do that’.
“It’s only a matter of time. Rhys showed you can do it and then it just takes a while for people to catch on.”
Montgomery already won World Cup medals, including silver on floor in Antalya in March, having announced himself as a senior international with a podium finish at the FIG World Challenge Cup in Paris in 2022.
Read more:
He also represented Northern Ireland at his second Commonwealth Games recently, where he was frustrated after his floor score left him outside the final.
Now his attention turns to Zagreb, where he will compete in the all-around at a European Championships for the first time, taking on all six apparatus rather than concentrating solely on floor.
Being forced to take almost a year away from the sport in 2024 after an ankle injury was followed by back problems changed his outlook.
“I was thinking I’d like to do as much gymnastics as possible before I retire instead of just doing floor all the time,” he said.
“It opened up doors in my head to enjoy pommel, even though I’ve always hated pommel. I enjoy it a bit now, and I enjoy high bar (horizontal bar), too.
“That time off made me love gymnastics as a whole more instead of just one piece.”
Young guns James Hickey and Oisin O’Connell are also part of the Irish team, while Belfast teenager Chester Enriquez has been ruled out through injury.
7 August 2026; Eamon Montgomery during the Gymnastics Ireland content gathering day at the Sport Ireland National Gymnastics Training Centre in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile (David Fitzgerald / SPORTSFILE/SPORTSFILE)
Along with Montgomery and McClenaghan, Daniel Fox and Adam Steele provide the experience alongside the younger members.
“Maybe five or six years ago it was only Rhys,” Montgomery said. “Then Adam started coming through with his all-around, which was impressive, then I came through with medals.
“Now James has come through and there are others. Chester’s the youngest and he was with us at the World Cups, where he did very well.”.
Montgomery first found gymnastics almost by accident. His parents were taking him to the swimming pool in Lisburn when they went through the wrong door at the leisure centre and discovered a new gym.
He joined the waiting list and eventually got his chance.
“I was already doing flips on the trampoline in the back garden,” he recalled. “When I started gymnastics, I just loved it, so hopefully it was the right door we went through, after all.”
Now he hopes the path McClenaghan opened remains wide enough for the next generation.
“I’m young in the general population sense, but in gymnastics I’m just coming out of the young phase into the middle,” he said.
“I still have plenty to give, I think. Yeah, it’s still ahead for sure.
“I’m excited, it’ll be good to be part of a team again and the stuff I’m doing now is the best I’ve done yet. It’s not like I’m going backwards at all. It seems to be getting better year by year.”