How the U.S. men's gymnastics team won its first medal since 2008

He didn’t need official results. All Brett McClure needed was the sight of Stephen Nedoroscik’s feet hiting the mat on another clean routine to know.

His scheme worked.

The U.S. high performance director’s three-year plan to end the country's 16-year Olympic medal drought paid off Monday as the Americans won the bronze medal in the team final at Bercy Arena. After three consecutive fifth-place Olympic finishes, the United States has now won world and Olympic medals in consecutive years for the first time since 2003 and 2004.

Japan overcame a shocking fall from reigning Olympic all-around champion Daiki Hashimoto on pommel horse to take gold over China, which suffered three falls on high bar in the final rotation. Japan, which doubled down on its 2023 world championship, won with 259.594 points, 0.532 points ahead of China. The United States finished with 257.793 points, clearing fourth-place Great Britain by more than two points.

Frederick Richard, Brody Malone, Paul Juda and Asher Hong stood shoulder to shoulder with their arms draped across one another's backs as Nedoroscik mounted the pommel horse to clinch the medal. When the 2021 pommel horse world champion’s feet hit the ground on his dismount, they burst into a euphoric celebration.

McClure tried to hold his emotions, figuring he wanted to wait for the official results. Tears soon flowed as he watched the athletes celebrate under a U.S. flag he handed to Malone, the team captain.

“Just the progress that we've made over the last few years building his team culture, team belief and accountability and expectations and all these things that you preach on a daily basis,” said McClure, who won a team silver medal for the United States in 2004, “to step back and watch them do this on their own and take control of this is like I did my job.”

When he left the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, McClure knew the program had to change to challenge for an Olympic medal. The Americans were already knocked off the podium before they entered the arena. Their difficulty score during the team final was seven points behind the top team Japan, a chasm even perfect execution could not close.

More than straighter legs or stronger arms, the program needed to tip the math in its favor.

In an effort to boost the team’s difficulty score, USA Gymnastics used a complicated bonus system that encouraged athletes to demonstrate upgraded skills. Typically, a fall while attempting a difficult element would decide an athlete’s standing on the national team and the financial and marketing opportunities that come with the designation. But the bonus system, which began in 2022, offered a safety net of additional points at domestic competitions for more difficult skills that would have offset a fall.

It was a bold strategy. It was rough at first, coach Sam Mikulak said, as athletes and coaches tried to buy into the process to learn more daring skills. But as the three-time Olympian wrapped Nedoroscik in a hug and lifted him off the ground after his clinching routine, Mikulak knew it paid off.

“All of the sudden, you do that hard stuff long enough and sure enough, here we are,” said Mikulak, who coaches at EVO, the Florida gym where Malone and Nedoroscik train. “We're just gonna stay on this trajectory and we're gonna be even hungrier going in the future.”

The United States trailed Japan and China by four and 3.3 points, respectively, in difficulty Sunday.

After a shaky qualification round that landed the team in the dreaded fifth place, the United States hit all 18 routines in the final. Nedoroscik's effort was the exclamation point.

The 25-year-old had waited two hours to perform his lone routine of the night. When he stuck his dismount, he punched the air with both fists.

“It was just the greatest moment of my life,” Nedoroscik said with the bronze medal draped around his neck.

For the United States, the third-place award felt as good as gold.

“We ended the drought,” said Juda, whose stuck vault to lead off the second rotation helped turn momentum toward the United States. “Sixteen years in the making and couldn't be happier for everybody.”

Juda, Hong and Richard were part of the 2023 team that won the program’s first world championship medal since 2014, winning bronze. All are still in their early 20s with Juda being the oldest at 23. With a home-country Olympics looming, this could just be the beginning of a golden age of American men’s gymnastics under McClure, whom Richard credited with “really raising the standard of who we are: not just to be Olympians, but to bring medals home.”

“I think going forward to L.A., we're gonna put new strategies in place for us to compete, pushing the next level, pushing that standard,” the 20-year-old Michigan star continued. “So once we compete in L.A., we'll really be the top dogs.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .