Olympic waiting game for Max Whitlock (From Echo)

Olympic waiting game for Max Whitlock

1:50pm Monday 25th June 2012 in Sport By James Colasanti

MAX Whitlock has now done all he can in his bid to book a dream spot at the Olympics after a solid showing at the national championships.

The South Essex Gymnastics Club member finished fifth in front of a packed crowd at the British senior all-round event in Liverpool at the weekend.

And the19-year-old, who trains at the Basildon Sporting Village, can now only keep his fingers crossed that he will make the final cut when the five-man team is named on July 4.

Whitlock’s score of 89.350 was enough to secure him fifth in a keenly-contested championships at Liverpool’s Echo Arena.

Southport gymnast Daniel Purvis retained his British senior all-around title for the third successive year with a score of 91.550.

Sam Oldham returned from injury to take silver with 90.050, and Daniel Keatings, who has also suffered injury woes, took the bronze scoring 90.700.

Kristian Thomas (89.550) was fourth, and Ruslan Panteyleymonov sixth (86.800).

Whitlock also qualified for the individual Masters pommel event on Sunday and took silver with a score of 15.425, behind GB Olympic poster boy Louis Smith, who scored a stunning 16.375 to claim victory.

The Olympic team is likely to include pommel horse specialist Louis Smith and Purvis, with Whitlock battling it out with Keatings, Oldham, Thomas and Panteyleymonov for one of the other three places.

But Whitlock was part of the recent five-man team which took European Championships gold for Great Britain, and the selectors now have some tough decisions to make.