Brody Malone, the top male gymnast and current U.S. men's individual all-around champion, struggled in the preliminaries and was dropped from the individual competition.
Malone fell three times in Saturday's preliminaries, twice on the horizontal bar and once on the pommel horse, but still finished with a score of 79.598. He's currently in 11th place in the first event. The top 24 competitors in the three events will advance to the finals.
Only two gymnasts can advance to the individual all-around final from each Olympic committee, but Malone missed out after finishing far behind teammates Frederic Richard and Paul Judah, who placed third and fourth, respectively.
Malone suffered a serious knee injury last year and underwent multiple surgeries, but recovered well enough to win her third national all-around title in June. Malone also had an impressive performance at the US National Trials, finishing second to Richard.
Malone struggled Saturday, receiving a 0.3 point deduction on vault and earning just 6.033 points on the horizontal bar, her strongest and most difficult event. Malone finished fourth overall on the horizontal bar at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics but is unlikely to advance to the final on that event.
Malone's only chance of making the finals is through an individual event – he did well on the parallel bars, earning 14.533 points and placing fourth in that event – but a place in the finals is not guaranteed as only the top eight finishers in all three events advance to the finals.
Meanwhile, Richard and Judah advance to the next round. The two former Michigan teammates performed well on Saturday, with Richard earning 83.498 points and Judah earning 82.865 points. With the first of three divisions completed, Team USA is now in second place in teams with 253.229 points. Great Britain is in first place with 256.561 points.
