U.S. Olympic trials: Stanford’s Malone puts himself in position to earn trip to Paris

By Chrös McDougall Correspondent

MINNEAPOLIS — With a trip to Paris next month on the line, Stanford alum Brody Malone showed he’s ready for a second Olympics. Meanwhile, current Cardinal stars Asher Hong and Khoi Young have work ahead of them to secure their spots after the first night at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Gymnastics on Thursday in Minneapolis.

Malone, a 10-time NCAA champion during his time in the Bay Area, finished second on the first of two days of competition at the Target Center, trailing Fred Richard by half a point. Another performance like that on Sunday should all but secure a spot on the five-person U.S. team.

Neither Hong not Young, leaders of the Cardinal team that won a fifth consecutive NCAA title this spring, performed as emphatically, with Hong placing fifth and Young a distant 12th at the midway point.

Two other members of Stanford’s 2024 NCAA championship team, Colt Walker and Jeremy Bischoff, ended 10th and 11th, respectively, while Cardinal alum Curran Phillips took the top spot on his primary apparatus, parallel bars, which could keep him in contention for the team.

The gymnasts will be back at the Target Center on Saturday afternoon.

“Big picture is we’ve got to show up,” Stanford coach Thom Glielmi said. “They can’t expect to go on auto mode. They’ve got to be here and compete.”

Malone took part in only his third all-around since a serious knee injury last year nearly ended his career. The first two were at the U.S. championships four weeks ago in Fort Worth, Texas, where he led both nights to claim his third national title.

The 24-year-old from Rockmart, Georgia, appeared on his way to a third all-around win in front of an energized Target Center crowd. On a night when several of the gymnasts played into the frenzy, Malone remained notably stone faced as he piled up points early on the vault, parallel bars and high bar.

Next up was floor, though, the last event Malone started competing after his injury. Still getting his bearings there, Malone’s score of 13.75 left him eighth on that event, and then he tied for seventh on the pommel horse before ending strong on rings. That gave enough of an opening for Richard, the reigning world all-around bronze medalist, to seize the lead in the fifth rotation.

Barring a meltdown Saturday, both should be firmly in position to make the Olympic team. The all-around winner at trials will earn an automatic berth, so long as he’s also top three on three individual apparatuses. Malone ended second on high bar and vault, and third on rings. Richard leads on high bar and floor, and is third on parallel bars.

Besides the potential automatic spot, the U.S. team will otherwise be selected largely via simulations to determine the highest-scoring group for the Olympic team final in Paris.

That could be bad news for Young, the reigning NCAA champion. Coming off a breakout 2023 season in which he won three medals at the world championships, the 21-year-old from Bowie, Maryland, seemed to solidify his Olympic credentials with a third-place finish at nationals.

His performance Thursday undid much of that.

Starting on his weakest event, still rings, didn’t help, and neither did the night’s best vault in the second rotation. As the night went on, Young slipped lower and lower in the standings until the final rotation when, on his other signature event, everything fell apart. Young fell twice on pommel horse, ending the night with a score of 79.6.

It was a far cry from last October when he won world championships silver medals on horse and vault, while also helping the U.S. team to bronze.

“I’ve never seen a routine like that in practice, let alone at a meet,” Glielmi said. “That was very, very uncharacteristic.”

It was a role reversal, of sorts, as in Fort Worth it was Hong who struggled to a 10th-place finish one year after winning the national championship. On Thursday, the 20-year-old from Tomball, Texas, was mostly solid as he scored 83.7. His best showing came on rings, where he placed second.

“He was for the most part six for six today,” Glielmi said.

Hong, a longtime rising star in U.S. men’s gymnastics, won three events at the last NCAA championships, and Glielmi said his overall level of difficulty would be an asset to a U.S. team in Paris.

Competition in Minneapolis continues Friday with the start of the women’s competition, where four returning Olympians and five additional world championships medalists will take part in one of the most competitive women’s trials in recent memory.