US end 16-year gymnastics drought with men’s team bronze at Paris Olympics

Team USA ended a 16 year drought in men’s gymnastics in Paris on Monday, clinching bronze in a dramatic team final.

It’s the first team medal for the US men’s team since the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Heading into the final rotation of six in the men’s team final, China led Japan and the US, with Great Britain in fifth. But Su Weide took three big reductions on China’s final routine to knock them from first to second, with Japan claiming gold and the US taking bronze.

“Today taught me a big lesson,” Su said. “It’s a big regret. I feel sorry for my senior partners in the team. They have worked very hard in this cycle, there were a lot of injuries in the buildup, and because of my errors today, we lost the gold medal.”

It was Japan’s eighth team gold and first since Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

It was a day of redemption for defacto team captain Brody Malone, who is just 16 months removed from a knee injury that threatened to end his career. Malone, a three-time US champion, struggled during qualifying. The 24-year-old fell on multiple events and failed to reach the all-around final.

Malone is by far the most experienced athlete on the five-man US team, which includes Paul Juda, Asher Hong, Frederick Richard, Brody Malone and Stephen Nedoroscik, a pommel horse specialist, joined his teammates on the final rotation.

“I had my coach by my side and he does a great job of taking the nerves out of [me] and he hypes me up,” Nedoroscik said. “But these guys hit every routine before me and I have a statistic – when people hit before me, I also hit. So I went out there and did my job and I enjoyed the moment.”

After qualifying in fifth place, the US finished with a final score of 257.793, trailing China on 259.062 and Japan on 259.594.