FORT WORTH, Texas – Brody Malone dismounted from the high bar, his legs practically magnetized to the mat. He greeted the judges, turned to the crowd, and then did something very un-Brody Malone.
He roared. He couldn’t help it.
The sound that echoed through Dickies Arena after the first night of the United States Championships on Thursday was a mix of joy and catharsis drawn from more than a year of pain, uncertainty and occasional doubt.
It was also a message, very loud and very clear, to the rest of the men trying to make the U.S. Olympic team for this summer’s Paris Games: The normally soft-spoken two-time national champion is back, with his right knee surgically repaired. and all.
“I lost it in the end,” Malone said after posting a total of 85.950 that put him atop the leaderboard heading into Saturday’s final.
Considering his winding path back to this moment, it’s hard to blame Malone, 24, who has roots in northwest Georgia as a 2018 graduate of Summerville’s Trion High School.
Her high bar routine at a World Cup event in Germany in March 2023 began with Malone running through the same set that had earned her a gold medal at the 2022 World Championships.
Then Malone slipped during his descent. When he crashed to the mat, his right leg went in one direction and the rest of his body in another. Lying on the ground in agony as the arena fell silent, his leg fractured and multiple knee ligaments shattered, Malone somehow found clarity.
“I knew I was going to be gone for a long time, but the main thing that was going through my head was like, ‘This just happened. I just have to take things as they come now,'” he said. .
Like, say, getting on a stretcher. Calling her family in Georgia. Get to the hospital. Preparing for the first of what would be three surgeries needed to help him walk normally again.
Gymnastics can be brutal on the body, especially for those who spend the better part of two decades testing the limits. The injury rate is essentially 100%.
Still, this was different. Syque Caesar, a former Olympian who is now a coach, watched the medical staff tend to Malone and shook his head. When asked what end of the gymnastics scale Malone’s injury fell on, Caesar simply responded “catastrophic.”
“A lot of people who weren’t Brody Malone probably would have retired from the sport,” said Caesar, who now coaches Malone at EVO Gymnastics in Sarasota, Florida. “For anyone else, it certainly could have been the end of his career.”
Not for the 5-foot-6 Malone, a former rodeo rider who knows a thing or two about resilience.
KeynoteUSA Photo by LM Otero/Brody Malone performs on the high bar during the United States Championships Thursday night in Fort Worth, Texas. Malone returned to gymnastics competition this year after returning from a devastating leg injury that occurred during an event in March 2023 and required multiple surgeries.
THE WAY BACK
His mother Tracy died of cancer in 2012; Seven years later, her stepmother Lynn Johnson died after a brain aneurysm. As difficult as those losses were for Malone, having faced them is part of what gave him the perspective needed to navigate his way back to the competitive field.
Yes, his leg hurt a lot. Yes, there were times when she wondered if she really had the ability to do this. Yes, the fear of missing out watching the American men win a team bronze medal at the 2023 World Championships without him was real.
Still, it’s “just” gymnastics, right?
“I mean, I’ve been through worse,” said Malone, whose 11th NCAA title at Stanford University included four team championships for the Cardinal.
Caesar tried to manage expectations when Malone joined EVO in the summer of 2023, with the coach telling US men’s high performance director Brett McClure that they only “needed” the gymnast to be ready in four of the six men’s events for the 2024 Olympic Games: pommel horse, rings, high bar and parallel bars, those where the legs are least stressed.
At least that’s what Caesar told McClure. That’s not what he told Malone.
“I’m aiming for the stars,” Caesar said. “I told him, ‘You’re coming back for (the all-around competition). We’ll figure out your gymnastics and go from there.'”
As Malone began to heal, a plan began to form to prepare him not only for floor exercises but also for vault (where leg stability is a prerequisite) for the US Olympic Trials in late June. . In January, Malone was flipping and landing on a TumbleTrak (imagine a trampoline on steroids). In March, he was trying things out on the court.
And there he was Thursday night at the United States Championships, with a sizeable brace and a good amount of duct tape covering the scar that runs about four inches along the outside of his right leg, showing in some aspects better than ever.
KeynoteUSA Photo by LM Otero/Brody Malone competes in the rings at the United States Championship on Thursday night in Fort Worth, Texas.
WHATS NEXT
The limitations placed on his legs during the early stages of his rehabilitation gave Malone more time to hone his skills in events that are more upper-body intensive. That way, Malone can be ahead of where he was in 2021, when he finished 10th in the all-around final at the Tokyo Olympics.
Sam Mikulak, another EVO coach, pulled Malone aside recently and offered him a pep talk, one that the six-time national champion and three-time Olympian admits he probably didn’t need to give.
“It’s like, ‘Dude, with everything you’ve done, you’ve made your strength that much stronger,'” Mikulak said. “‘So now you’re a better gymnast than ever, you just have to trust and let it go.'”
Malone no longer worries about whether his leg will hold up. During Thursday’s warmups, he failed at the end of a run and bent over awkwardly. While others around him reflexively worried, he laughed and admitted that he was embarrassed but not hurt.
If anything, those crash-and-burn moments have helped him regain his confidence as much as any stuck dismount. She has tasted her leg. He has tested himself. Both have always happened.
He’s back, maybe a little earlier than expected. He’s ready to stop talking about his leg and start focusing on what’s next, including maybe a trip to Paris and a reminder to everyone else that when he’s at his best, he’s among the best.
“I hate losing. I’m not coming just to participate,” he said of this weekend in Fort Worth. “I want to win.”
Perhaps in the most important sense, it already has.
Keynote USA
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