PARIS, France — One of Georgia's most promising Olympians in Paris, gymnast Brody Malone, likely saw his hopes for an individual medal dashed on Saturday after a disappointing qualifying session.
Malone, who competed in the individual all-around event as one of the top two U.S. male gymnasts in Tokyo, finished far behind his teammates Saturday and was eliminated (with only two gymnasts from each country allowed to compete in the 24-gymnast all-around field).
USA Today reported that Malone apologized to his teammates after qualifying (one teammate, Frederick Richard, offered support, saying: "We all have bad days.")
"Biggest challenge, I mean, we just have to continue to do our gymnastics. I feel like I fell a little bit short of that today," Malone said. "So that's gonna be my biggest challenge, just bringing it back to what I usually do."
The all-around event was not the only disappointment for Malone, the U.S. national all-around champion three years running and the 2022 world champion in the horizontal bars. The 24-year-old arrived in Paris with high hopes having won that most recent national championship despite coming back from a major injury last year.
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But he had a fall on the pommel horse and miscues on the horizontal bar - his 2022 World Championships gold event - en route to finishing outside the top 8 to directly qualify for any single apparatus final.
His performance in the rings apparatus left a faint possibility he'd be close enough to the top 8 to qualify as a reserve, and then reach the final with a top-8 finisher being unable to compete.
In other disciplines - floor exercise, pommel horse and horizontal bar, usually his best - he was near the bottom among finishers.
Malone could still earn a medal with the U.S. men's team, which would need to place among the top 8 teams to qualify for the team final. The U.S. men were likely to do so, positioned fifth after two subdivisions with one more subdivision still to go through qualifying.
"We left a lot on the table - well, I left a lot on the table today, the guys did great," he said. "It's Day 1, nerves were high, but I think we got it out and can work through the kinks and be ready for team finals."