Not only is the American women’s gymnastics team on a redemption tour in Paris. Plus, it’s gymnast Brody Malone’s comeback tour.
Malone is hoping to, at minimum, win the gold in his finest event after a dismal performance on the high bar at the Tokyo Olympics and a catastrophic knee injury last March that may have terminated his gymnastics career.
The men’s gymnastics team from the United States is keen to make history by being the first squad to reach the podium in sixteen years as they haven’t won an Olympic medal since 2008.
Finishing fourth on the high bar in Tokyo due to a small error “leaves your mouth feeling quite nasty,” he remarked.
The 24-year-old Malone went on to win the gold in the same competition the next year, but acknowledged that “there’s just a difference between an Olympic medal and a world medal.” That’s what I want, then,” he declared.
Malone’s hopes of competing in a second Olympic Games and winning an Olympic medal were cast into doubt when she slipped on the high bar during the DTB Cup in Germany in March 2023.
After dismounting, he “landed funky” and injured his knee. A few weeks later, an MRI revealed he had broken a portion of his tibia and ruptured several ligaments in his knee.
Malone is defying all expectations by returning to the Olympics on all six apparatuses, despite having to relearn how to walk after three surgeries and more than a year of rigorous training and rehabilitation.
“There had always been plans to attempt a resurgence,” Malone stated. The two most taxing events for the knees are floor and vault, so the question was simply whether or not I would be able to complete both.
Malone described his injury as a “huge motivator” for wanting to return to the Olympics. It was this ailment that drove him toward Paris.
“You cannot truly understand how much you desire something until it is taken away from you,” Malone stated. “And that’s just how things turned out in the end.”
But it didn’t come without a lot of effort. After weeks of bed rest, Malone admitted that there were times he didn’t want to exercise at the gym because he was frustrated with using crutches.
“However, it’s critical to remember that I get to do this and don’t have to,” Malone stated. He reversed his perspective by concentrating on little objectives he could accomplish on a daily basis at the gym.
All of that preparation has led up to the July 26 start of the Olympics in Paris. Malone reported that while his knee is “doing really, really well,” he has no plans to make any changes in preparation for the Games. Rather, he will continue with the routines from the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, “just trying to do them as cleanly as possible.”