"Inside the Home of Max Whitlock: Team GB's Olympic Champion Shares Insights on Family Life with Wife and Young Daughter - OK! Magazine"

The celebrations for the 2024 Olympics are well and truly in swing, and Team GB have headed to Paris in the hope of bringing home gold.

To kick off the highly-anticipated event, the opening ceremony featured an array of dazzling performances from the likes of Lady Gaga and athletes sailing down the River Seine. And since then, Scarlett Mew Jensen and Yasmin Harper won the bronze medal in the women's synchronized 3m springboard diving on Saturday, 27 July.

So, as the competition continues to heat up, OK! take a look back at our exclusive photoshoot with Olympic gymnastics champion Max Whitlock.

In 2016, Max made history by becoming the first British gymnast to win Olympic gold in Rio. He bagged two gold medals for his pommel horse and floor routines, as well as an all-round bronze, making him Britain's most decorated gymnast.

As the then-28 year old headed off to Tokyo for 2020's Games, fans were eagerly anticipating a successful defense of his pommel horse title. Among those cheering him on was his wife Leah, 29, who watched the Games from home with their two year old daughter Willow and the rest of Max's family.

Their cheers echoed through the house as he performed a dazzling and technically brilliant routine to claim gold cementing his status as the most successful gymnast in Olympic history on the apparatus.

After Tokyo, Max invited OK! in for a chat about his win, the challenges of preparing for the Games amid the pandemic, and his joy at being reunited with his family. Let's take a look back at what the champion had to say...

Hi Max! Congratulations on your Olympic gold, you must be on cloud nine...

Max: It all seems a bit surreal. But it's lovely to be home after a long period away and I'm massively proud of what I've done and what the team has achieved.

You're now the most successful gymnast ever on a pommel horse. How does that feel?

Max: That's crazy. It feels like it's happening to someone else, not me. From a young age, I've trained on the pommel horse twice as much as I have on any other piece of apparatus, so to get a title like that feels great.

How hard were you training in the lead-up to the Games?

Max: It was intense and it's been a challenging time because of Covid. I was preparing for the Games going ahead but aware they might be cancelled again. Being stuck at home and training in the garden on my pommel horse wasn't ideal! But it wasn't ideal for anyone, we've all been in the same boat.

With the Games cancelled last year, did you have more time to prepare?

Max: Yeah and that was the positive that I took out of it. There were some challenges as well, because I was a year older, but it did give me that time to focus on all the little things in a routine that I wouldn't have had time to work on.

Did you surpass your own expectations?

Max: I never expect medals, because you never know what's going to happen on the day. This time round was 10 times harder and I was the most nervous I'd ever felt. Coming off the back of Rio, where I won two golds, put a lot of pressure on me in terms of other people's expectations. People think because you've won a gold medal before, you can do it again. It was hard but I'm just happy that it finished the way it did.

What was life like backstage at the Olympics?

Max: It was a bit different this time. We had a lot of protocols to follow, a lot of Covid testing, and we were trying to stay away from people as much as possible, which was a shame. And it was hard not having an audience. There were a lot of things missing but it still felt like an Olympic Games. The team I went out with are such a great group of people, everyone was so positive. And as I was the only one that had previous Olympic experience, it was lovely to see everyone else's excitement at being there for the first time.

Leah, was it nerve-racking watching Max on TV?

Leah: It was. I just wanted him to do well for him, because he puts so much hard work into it. I was completely overwhelmed when he won.

Were you glued to it or hiding behind a cushion?

Leah: I was pretty gripped. I'm involved in gymnastics myself, as a coach, so I was watching to see how well he was doing.

When did you get to talk to each other after the win?

Leah: He FaceTimed me from the coach, on his way back to the Olympic Village. I was with his whole family, because we'd been watching him together. When he called, we gave him a huge cheer and screamed, 'You've done it!' He was like, 'I can't believe it.' I think everyone on the coach heard us cheering.

Max: It was about an hour after I won and it was the first opportunity I had, because straight afterwards I had to go to the media zone for a press conference. My whole family went crazy. They understand how hard this has been for me this time. I'm getting older and every year that goes by is a new learning curve.

Was Willow watching the gold-winning routine?

Leah: Yes she was, but she's still very young. Hopefully when she's a bit older she'll get the opportunity to watch Max compete in person!

Is she aware that her dad's a famous gymnast?

Max: I don't know. She's only two-and-a-half! She knows I got on a plane, went to Japan and did some gymnastics in another gym.

I think she's getting the gist of that because she does gymnastics once a week now too. So I was showing her the gym out in Japan on FaceTime, which she loved.

Do you hope Willow will compete in the future?

Leah: That'd be nice! We'd love her to be involved in gym and in sport in general, and if she likes it then we'll support her, wherever that takes her.

Max: You never know. We want her to do loads of different sports – she's having her first tennis lesson soon. The only thing that scares me about her doing gymnastics is that she has my surname and that will pile a lot of pressure on her.

It sounds like the whole family is gymnastics-mad...

Leah: As I'm involved in gymnastics, I understand what it takes to get to Max's level. So when training goes badly, I pick Max up, and if it goes well then we'll celebrate. We've been together a long time now, for 14 years, so you learn how to help somebody and how not to. The thing I find difficult is leading up to a competition, when Max spends a lot of time training and recovering, and we have to change our lifestyle as a family. We don't go out together as much, but it's not a problem and we work around it.

How did you celebrate with your family when you got back, Max?

Max: I went round to my parents' house the next day and just chilled out. That's what I wanted to do the most – just chill with all my family, the people who have helped me get to the point where I am. Then we had a big party with neighbours and friends of mine from the gym, and we're off to Devon for five days on holiday now.

It must have been amazing to be reunited after five weeks apart...

Max: It was. I'm a real homebird and that does make going away harder. I miss Leah and Willow massively, and just those normal things like having a barbecue with family and going to the cinema.

Leah: I organised lots of activities to keep Willow and me busy while he was away, as a distraction, and Max was FaceTiming us three times a day. But towards the end, Willow did start waking up and saying, 'Where's Dad?' She wanted him at home, which was sweet. So that's why, when she saw him for the first time, he got the best reaction from her.

The video of Willow greeting him at the airport is adorable!

Leah: I know that he wanted her to have missed him. And with kids, you just don't know how they're going to react. So her reaction was everything he could have wanted. Seeing that moment between them both was amazing.

Max: It was actually a complete surprise. The plan was that I was going to travel back with my coach, Scott. I don't know if you can see in the video but I only saw Willow at the last minute. It's a good job I didn't run her over with the luggage trolley!

Your home is beautiful. When did you move here?

Max: We moved in two days before Christmas in 2019, so it's quite new. It's out in the sticks but also not too far from reality. We love it here.

Leah: It's got everything that we wanted – even the brand-new Shaker-style kitchen I'd dreamed about! It had a really homely feel as soon as we walked through the door. We're lucky that all our neighbours are lovely too.

What's next for you, Max? Are you already planning for the Paris 2024 Olympics?

Max: Yeah, it's good to look ahead to your long-term targets. I was proud to make this my third Olympics but I'd love to make four. I think that would be something to be massively proud of and having a three-year cycle this time helps me out. Every year, it gets harder and harder. It'll be here before we know it, which is exciting. But for now, I'll be taking a bit of time out – I won't put any timescale on when I'll go back to training, I'll just wait until I have the motivation again. I think it's important to wait until the time is right.