Max Whitlock wins Olympic bronze medal in gymnastics all-around final

Max Whitlock won Great Britain’s first all-around gymnastics Olympics medal in 108 years as he took bronze in Rio.

Japan’s Kohei Uchimura, dominant in the event since 2009, retained his title and Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaiev won silver after an error on his final apparatus.

Britain’s Nile Wilson finished in eighth place in his first Olympics. Whitlock’s Olympic medal is only the ninth won by a British gymnast and the first in the men’s all-around event since Walter Tysall’s silver in 1908.

In a dramatic finish, Whitlock, 23, was one of the first to go in the last of six rotations and had to sit and wait anxiously after his floor routine to see if his rivals would deny him a medal.

The British gymnast finished with a points total of 90.641, only 0.143 more than Russia’s David Belyavskiy who finished fourth.

Whitlock has now won three Olympic bronze medals after two medals at London 2012 – in the team event and in the individual pommel horse final.

There was also drama in the race for the gold medal as Verniaiev, who had led since the third rotation, missed out on the title by a margin of 0.101 points after hopping forward when dismounting off the high bar.

Favourite Uchimura, who also won team gold with Japan in Rio, became the first gymnast in 44 years to win back-to-back Olympic all-around titles.

“Six world championships and two Olympic wins in eight years is a great victory. I’ve raised the bar,” said Uchimura, whose time in Rio got off to a bad start when he racked up a £3,700 mobile phone bill playing augmented reality game Pokemon Go.