Britain's Whitlock has not competed since the Tokyo 2020 Olympics but is due to feature as a guest at the Scottish National Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Perth this weekend.

Thirty-year-old Whitlock won gold on both floor and pommel horse in the space of just two hours at Rio 2016.

He defended his pommel horse title in Tokyo but then stepped away from the sport.

"If I hadn't gone through that feeling of being lost and struggling, of being a waste of space and come out of the other side, there is no way I'd have been able to continue at this level - I'd have just crumbled and collapsed," Whitlock told PA.

"I now see what I went through as a positive because it gave me a huge reset. 

"I came home from Tokyo and said that I was done with gymnastics and, in an instant, all that pressure and that fear of failure lifted, because it was suddenly irrelevant.

"What's interesting is that when I decided I was coming back, that sort of stuff didn't come back with it. 

"My fear of failure has completely gone. 

"I'm almost looking at it from a different angle, which I think is quite powerful. 

"I'm back simply because I feel like giving it another shot."

Whitlock's career also includes three Olympic bronze medals, three world titles and four European golds.

He has won Commonwealth gold four times but missed his home Birmingham 2022 Games during his break from competition.

However, he did carry the Queen's Baton during the Opening Ceremony.

Whitlock was also absent from a home World Championships in Liverpool in October and November.

"For the couple of years before Tokyo, gymnastics started to feel more like a job than something I had passion and love for and my main emotion after winning the gold medal was relief that I'd done it and it was over," Whitlock added. 

"I could forget about it and move forward."