MINNEAPOLIS — Coming home from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the U.S. men’s gymnastics team brought back valuable experience but for the first time since 2000, no medals.
“It left a bitter taste in our mouths,” the team’s star, Brody Malone, said.
Back on campus that fall, Malone and his Stanford teammates decided to do something about it.
The problem was clear. In elite gymnastics, routines carry a “start value” based on its level of difficulty. That difficulty score is then added to an execution score to determine the final score.
In Tokyo, the Americans began with a collective start value at least four points lower than those of the sport’s big three — China, Japan and the Russian Olympic Committee. That means even with execution scores on par with the three favorites, the U.S. didn’t stand a chance.
In Palo Alto, where many of the Cardinal gymnasts harbor national team ambitions, they didn’t wait for directions.
“We made it our mission at Stanford: We’re going to be the ones that do this, that spearhead this,” Malone said. “And so that’s what we did.”
That Cardinal gymnasts’ commitment to raising their standards in the gym drove the school to become the country’s preeminent college program and a key national team feeder, something that will be on full display this weekend at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Minneapolis.
While much of the attention will focus on Simone Biles and the women’s competition taking place Friday and Sunday, Malone and five other current or former Stanford gymnasts are expected to be central to the men’s event on Thursday and Saturday.
Malone, a three-time U.S. all-around champion and high bar world champion, is the closest thing to a lock for this year’s Olympic team, while Asher Hong and Khoi Young each boast multiple world championships medals and played key roles in the Cardinal’s record-tying fifth consecutive NCAA team title in April.
All around winners Fred Richard, Brody Malone and Khoi Young pose after the 2024 Xfinity U.S. Gymnastics Championships at Dickies Arena on June 01, 2024 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Two other current Stanford gymnasts, Jeremy Bischoff and Colt Walker, are also in the mix, as is alum Curran Phillips, who now trains with Malone and several other top post-grads at EVO Gymnastics in Sarasota, Florida.
Malone described the Stanford student body as “a culture that breeds excellence,” which carries over to the men’s gymnastics team.
“We made it a goal to win a national championship, and we did everything in our power every day to do that,” he said. “It ended up working out for us, and then we also brought that attitude not just to the collegiate level, but also to the Team USA level.”
In a way, Stanford’s success has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, U.S. high-performance director Brett McClure said. As the team piles up NCAA titles, more national team-level gymnasts choose the program. That, in turn, puts less pressure on the Cardinal’s stars each week, allowing them to rest more during the season and work on bigger skills.
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Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
