Rhys McClenaghan has said Dancing with the Stars is getting "more challenging" as he progresses in the competition.
The Olympic gold medallist and his pro partner Laura Nolan have hugely impressed the judges and audience at home alike with their accomplished routines and are sitting at the top of the leaderboard.
Speaking to press alongside Nolan ahead of Sunday's show, the Co Down native said that "in some ways" he's enjoying the show more as it goes along, while "in other ways it gets more challenging".
"[You have to] learn a dance for one week and then forget about it and go onto the next dance," he explained.
"It's challenging the more dances I’ve got in my head now, but that’s one of the main reasons I wanted to do the show was for this challenge, and I welcome it, in many ways."
Nolan said: "Also I don’t go light and easy on the routines, so I’m always challenging him to do more and more, like 'This is going to be really fast but you’re going to try to do it, if you get it, it’s amazing!'"
The gymnast said he doesn't feel any added pressure having scored his first 10 of the competition, and Nolan's first 10 out of five seasons, with last week's Charleston to The Spider-Man Theme from Spider-Man.
"Every week it's the same goal, it's just about enjoying each performance, that tends to be when we get our best results," he said.
"I'm at the top of the leaderboard so from the first night I’ve had that pressure to deal with. It was Laura’s first 10 of the entire show!"
"Of my five seasons, so that was nice!", Nolan said. "We always said that we wanted to give the best performance that we can and I think we’re more competing against ourselves than anything else.
"It's just doing the best we can that week and giving everything. Once we look back on a performance and say 'That’s the best that we could do on the night', then that’s all we can control."
Watch: Rhys McClenaghan and Laura Nolan doing a Charleston to The Spider-Man Theme
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"When we celebrate at the end of doing our performance it’s a celebration for us," McClenaghan continued. "Quite often the performance we do on Sundays is the best one we’ve done out of the whole week. We don’t really think of the leaderboard.
"The same thing happens in a gymnastics competition, when you see me celebrating after a routine it’s not me thinking 'That’s enough for gold'.
"I don’t know what the judges are going to score me at all, when I celebrate it’s me celebrating that I’ve done my job and it’s the exact same thing when it comes to Sunday nights now."
Professional dancer and choreographer Nolan said he is "the perfect student".
"He trusts everything that I’m saying to him and goes away and really thinks about it each time," she said.
"Each day that we’re in rehearsals he comes back knowing more and doing it even better than the day before. I think it’s because he’s used to be coached."
McClenaghan interjected: "My whole career in gymnastics has been directed and coached in certain ways so I’m bringing a lot of skills that I’ve learned over the years into the dancing."
The pressure of performing in front of a live audience doesn't phase him in the slightest.
"It’s something that I’ve had to get used to for many years being in gymnastics. I’ve learned how to deal with different mindsets on being judged, it all comes with the territory of being an elite athlete," he said.
"So when I come to do something like Dancing with the Stars, that fear doesn’t really exist, just like it doesn’t in a competition, the focus always goes to what I can control. That’s always the routine - being a dance routine or a gymnastics routines."
Nolan agreed: "I can definitely see that that has carried through to Dancing with the Stars, the way his mind works on the night of a live, how he deals with that is unbelievable how he’s able to do it with no added pressure."
The champion athlete added: "The only difference for me is that I try to enjoy the dancing a lot more on the night because that’s how you get the best performance, whereas with the gymnastics I need to switch into this serious, focused mode, pretend like nobody is there in the arena watching me.
"Whereas on Sunday nights I’m walking onto the dancefloor, waving to my family in the crowd and then putting a smile on my face."
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