Chattooga County native Brody Malone ensured the U.S. men didn’t finish the world gymnastics championships without a medal. He also ensured they didn’t leave without a gold medal.
Malone became the second American to win on the capstone men’s apparatus at worlds — high bar — after Kurt Thomas in 1979. Malone, one year after taking bronze at worlds and missing his first Olympic medal by one spot, had what NBC Sports’ John Roethlisberger called his best high bar routine ever and scored 14.800 points.
That was enough to defeat Olympic and world all-around champion Daiki Hashimoto of Japan by one tenth in Liverpool, England.
Malone, the two-time U.S. all-around champion, capped a world championships where he improved throughout finals. He had a poor team final on Wednesday (the U.S. finished fifth), improved to place fourth in the all-around on Friday and then upgraded to the top of the podium in the very last event Sunday.
“This week was pretty rough for us,” Malone said, according to the International Gymnastics Federation. “It just seemed like we were building up. This was a good one to end on.”
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