Olympic gymnast carries mom’s presence with him
Stanford’s Malone heads to Tokyo Games with memories clear, present
Brody Malone ties a pink bandana to his backpack so he can carry memories of his mother with him to gymnastics competitions.
It’s the same fabric Tracy Malone wore when she lost her hair after chemotherapy treatments during a 4 ½-year ordeal with breast cancer.
The mother of four died from the disease in 2012, a month shy of Brody’s 13th birthday. She was 37.
Her son, a Stanford senior, has found inspiration in that piece of cloth with paisley swirls while becoming America’s top men’s all-around gymnast heading to the Tokyo Games that open July 23.
“I want to do it for her,” he said of the Olympics.
She had enrolled her oldest child in tumbling classes at age 3, then encouraged him to think about competing in the Summer Olympics one day.
“This has been a goal of mine for as long as I can remember,” Brody said. “Every day, I’d come to the gym to do this.”
Malone, 21, will face the world’s best for the first time in his life when team qualification begins July 24 at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre in To
kyo. China, Japan and Russia are the team medal favorites. The United States has finished fifth in the past two Olympics.
Tracy Malone was bedridden for much of the time she suffered from cancer. On good days, she would attend Brody’s ballgames, rodeos and gymnastics competitions in northwest Georgia.
A year before she died, Tracy took a video of Brody in a black hat and cowboy boots doing a handstand on his horse. She can be heard in the footage laughing heartily at her son’s antics.
“I don’t want the kids to ever forget her laugh and her smile,” said father John Malone, known as JD. “Brody’s definitely got that laugh.”
Malone had his children stay in the hospital room with their mom for the final week of her life so they could have closure. JD told his kids there was nothing they could do about the loss other than carrying on.
Seven years later, he was the one who needed help coping after his second wife died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. Lynn Johnson Malone was 49. The couple had been married for a year.
“My children have had to deal with death so much,” JD Malone said. “It has
given them a sense that life is short so you try to take each day as a blessing.”
Brody Malone, a 5-foot-5inch gymnast who has led Stanford to back-to-back NCAA titles, found sanctuary in the gym as he grew up. On weekends, he also competed in rodeos as a calf roper — going from a pommel horse to a roping horse.
The family’s interest in rodeo started with JD, who competed at the University of Tennessee at Martin.
Tracy was a show jumper.
The rodeo didn’t do much for Brody’s skills in the gym. But gymnastics made him a better cowboy because of the balance and strength it takes to perform on the apparatus.
“You’re on a 1,200-pound animal trying to control it while swinging a rope in your hand,” Brody said. “You’re trying to rope a calf or steer but you don’t know what they are going to do.”
Malone did not compete in bronco riding but took on steers when he was 8 or 9 years old. One time a steer
stepped on Malone’s foot and he suffered a fracture that kept him out of gymnastics for a few weeks. His father had the boy stick to roping after that.
JD Malone also coached his son in youth baseball but once Brody reached 12, the father asked him to choose one sport to do full time. The kid who once fractured a leg climbing out of his crib picked gymnastics.
Malone’s Olympic prospects looked promising for the Paris Games in 2024 when he won the NCAA allaround title as a Stanford freshman two years ago. But the outlook changed once the International Olympic Committee postponed the Tokyo Games for a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Malone, a high bar master, said the past year gave him a chance to upgrade his routines and vault to the top of the U.S. team.
As if it were so simple. Malone struggled to find an open gym after Stanford administrators closed campus in the spring of 2020. Malone first trained near his girlfriend’s home in Georgia.
Then he moved with some Cardinal teammates to Cypress, Texas, to work at the gym that produced 2008 Olympic silver medalist Jonathan Horton.
They lived in Airbnb homes and with the family of a former Stanford teammate. The gymnasts didn’t return to Palo Alto until the end of January.
Despite hopscotching around the country, Malone got enough training to peak for the U.S. Olympic trials. Stanford teammate Brandon Briones and Cardinal alumnus Akash Modi are U.S. team alternates while Stanford’s Thom Glielmi is the Olympic coach.
Malone plans to spend the next two years at Stanford, one of only 11 schools fielding a Division I men’s team as the sport has been the victim of budget cuts. Cal also has a varsity program.
While men’s gymnastics struggles on the collegiate level, the Olympics affords Malone an opportunity to build his brand. He has ascended to the world stage just as NCAA officials loosened restrictions on collegiate athletes’ ability to make money off their name, image and likeness.
Malone signed a sponsorship deal to become the face of fitness company EndlessRope after the U.S. Olympic trials two weeks ago. He plans to promote the company on social media while in Tokyo.
The gymnast wants to dedicate some of his earnings to develop the Tracy Malone Foundation for cancer research. The foundation would give Malone another way to safeguard the memories of his mom.
Her presence is with him when Malone twists, whirls and plunges off apparatus like a circus performer. It’s there in the pink bandana that accompanies him to meets.
Mostly, she’s with him in his mind.
“I think about her every day,” Malone said.