Stephen Nedroscik, Brody Malone, Clark Dean and Emma Weyant are more than just incredible athletes. They are Olympian heroes whose success has not only elevated their careers but has brought incredible pride and notoriety to Sarasota. Nedroscik captured a Bronze at the Olympics and the hearts of millions on Dancing With The Stars. Malone played a key role in helping Team USA win a historic Bronze Medal in gymnastics. Dean secured a Bronze in rowing, while Sarasota native Weyant claimed a Bronze in the women’s 400 medley swimming event. Congratulations to our local Olympians.
It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Stephen Nedoroscik
Clark Kent always had a tell. No, it wasn’t the glasses or striking resemblance to Superman. It wasn’t the red ‘S’ peeking out from underneath his button-down shirt or his crush on Lois Lane. It was his kindness, a desire to do right by others that radiated from him, that allowed people to see past the glasses. Stephen Nedoroscik, the bespectacled pommel horse specialist on the US Men’s Gymnastics team, who prepared for Paris by training at Sarasota’s EVO Gymnastics, has that same energy. Nedoroscik, went insanely viral this summer as Team USA’s “Clark Kent.” Just like Superman, he removes his glasses when performing his routine.
Nedoroscik, who only performs the pommel horse, had watched his teammates perform in the All-Around for the past day. At the very end of the competition, the fate of Team USA rested on his shoulders: stamp his routine and the US would win their first Men’s Gymnastics medal in 16 years. Fail, slip or mess up in any way and the chance to make history would slip from his fingers like the chalk he was patting on his hands. With bated breath, the whole world watched as Nedoroscik calmly rose from his seat, removed his glasses and walked up to the pommel horse. “It’s pretty easy to stay calm when you’re surrounded by your best friends, especially when they are slamming great routines after great routines. My teammates set me up so well going into that horse routine and their words of encouragement practically hit my routine for me,” says Nedeoroscik. “I am so grateful to each and every one of them because they made sure I was in the right headspace to hit a great routine.”
Nedoroscik crushed his routine, scoring a 14.866, the highest of any US male gymnast during the match, bringing home the Bronze for Team USA. Later that week, he advanced to the Individual Pommel Horse final, where he won Bronze, another historic feat. While Nedoroscik was understandably “over the moon” about winning Bronze in the pommel horse, the team medal is of particular significance. “The mission of the quad was to win an Olympic medal. Not for me or anyone specifically, but for our country and the future of men’s gymnastics,” says Nedoroscik. “Collectively we knew the future of the sport would be dictated by our actions and that responsibility carries a lot of weight. For us to achieve this monumental goal it’s impossible to put into words, but simply put, it’s the best feeling ever.” The significance lies in the fact that Men’s Gymnastics has been facing a severe decline in popularity over the past two decades. On all levels, the gap between men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics has widened—in the 2023-24 season, 12,000 boys competed in gymnastics compared to 138,000 girls. As viewership has waned, so too have NCAA programs—as of 2024, there are only 12 Division 1 programs left. Nedoroscik is well aware of this. That’s why while participating on Dancing With The Stars, yes, he went that viral, he broke out a pommel horse routine on stage, urging the support of men’s gymnastics. If that doesn’t encapsulate the essence of Clark Kent, well then, what does?
Brody Malone has Beaten the Odds Time and Time again to Become One of the Best Male Gymnasts the US Has Ever Seen
Brody Malone speaks with the slight southern twang that makes it seem like life comes easily to him. That every day is just a walk in the park. And maybe it is. He’s kind and humble, almost to the point of being soft spoken, and isn’t afraid to let loose a breezy smile every once in a while. But it’s hard to believe that’s the case. Because for the 24-year-old two-time Olympian, nothing has been given to him. Everything has been earned. Born in Johnson City, Tennessee, Malone was an active, rambunctious child, whose parents quickly enrolled in gymnastics at the age of three. The oldest of four, he spent much of his childhood on his family’s 10-acre property in Cedartown, Georgia, where hard work became a part of his DNA. His father, JD, had competed in rodeo at Georgia Southern University and so did Brody and his brother Cooper for a time, becoming team rodeo champions. His mother, Tracy, had an affinity for horses, as many as thirteen called the property home, which brought love, but also more work into the fold. Malone and his two brothers would spend an hour cleaning the stalls and feeding the horses before school and another 2-3 exercising them at the end of the day, after school and gymnastics practice. Georgia was also where tragedy became a part of Makone’s DNA. When Malone was 12, his mother Tracy, who had been sick for much of his childhood, died of breast cancer. In 2019, the same year he left for Stanford, his stepmother passed after suffering a ruptured brain aneurysm. So no, despite his soft tone and easy smile, life has not been all peaches and cream for Brody Malone.
Leading up to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Malone faced even more adversity. A veteran of the 2020 Olympic Games, a seven-time NCAA champion, a three-time United States all-around champion and two-time Pan American Championships gold medal winner, Malone was, and perhaps still is, the United States’ best all-around male gymnast. Everything was lining up for Malone to compete in Paris in 2024, until he took a horrific fall off the high bar at the DTB Pokal Team Challenge and Mixed Cup in Germany in March of 2023. Malone’s right knee was effectively destroyed—he suffered a tibial plateau fracture, the upper part of the tibia that involves the knee joint, a fully torn LCL, a torn meniscus, cartilage damage and a partially torn PCL. “To be honest, the first couple of weeks after my injury I didn’t really know if I was gonna be able to come back for the Olympics. I’d had a surgery in Germany to put an external fixator in and then a surgery at Stanford, where they repaired my meniscus and fracture,” says Malone. “Because of the surgeries they couldn’t do an MRI, it was difficult because I didn’t know what I’d torn and we didn’t know what the recovery process was going to be like. It was kind of up in the air at that point whether or not I was gonna be able to come back.”
After the fall, Malone couldn’t even walk, much less compete. But he was determined as ever to return in time for the Olympic trials in 2024. His time at Stanford coming to a close, he moved his training to EVO Gymnastics in Sarasota, where an old coach from Stanford, Syque Cesar, was training a select number of elite gymnasts in preparation for the 2024 games. “I’d heard about EVO and knew some of the people down there. Since I’d graduated from Stanford, it made more sense to move down to Sarasota—they’d hired a full time PT/AT down there just to cover the senior guys,” says Malone. “Going from being with a team of 20-24 guys to training with just five other gymnasts, essentially transitioning from student-athlete to just athlete was really different. It was an adjustment, but EVO provided a phenomenal training atmosphere and guided me through the rehab process.”
Malone beat his original recovery timeline and qualified for the 2024 Olympic Team after winning his third all-around national title at the 2024 US National Gymnastics Championships. Paris, however, brought even more adversity to Malone. As the gold-standard of the US Men’s Olympic team, Malone was thought to be the team’s best chance at winning an all-around medal. Improbably, Malone fell twice during qualifications, eliminating himself from medal contention. “Going into the Olympics my number one goal was a team medal. That was the main priority for all of us. Obviously, I had individual goals as well and I just didn’t perform on the first day,” says Malone. “It’s just kind of how sports goes, it was a bad day to have a bad day you know? I’d say it was pretty easy to turn around and focus on the team because that’s what we were already doing anyway. The harder part was figuring out what had gone wrong on day one and how I could adjust for day two.” And adjust he did. In the Men’s Team Final, Malone helped power team USA to a historic Bronze Medal finish, the team’s first medal since 2008, by nailing his routines in the first and third rotation.
Sarasota-Native Emma Weyant has Become One of the United States Top Olympic Swimmers After Medaling in Consecutive Olympic Games
Sarasota is a city synonymous with water. Some residents avoid it, never stepping out onto a boat, only going to the beach every so often, instead basking in the sunshine on dry land. Emma Weyant is not one of those residents. From a young age, Weyant has always been attracted to the water. Born in Sarasota, the 22-year-old swimmer was a standout at Riverview High School and committed to swimming for the prestigious University of Virginia Cavaliers. Even at that age, Weyant was more than just a really good athlete—she was elite. Before even stepping foot on campus, Weyant competed for the United States in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where she won the silver medal in the women’s 400 meter individual medley. After her freshman season at the University of Virginia in 2021-2022, in which she won silver at the 500 yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Division 1 Championships, Weyant transferred back to her home state, joining the University of Florida, where she’d finish out her collegiate career. Weyant continued to succeed as a Gator, winning both the Gold Medal in the 800 yard freestyle relay at the 2024 NCAA Division 1 Championships and Silver in the 500 yard freestyle. This past summer, at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Weyant once again showed out, capturing Bronze in the 400 meter individual medley.
Sarasota-Native Clark Dean Played a Pivotal Role in Helping the US Men's Rowing Team Win Their First Olympic Medal Since 2008 in Paris 2024
Two thousand meters to absolution. The sun stretched out over the water at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium on August 3, where six boats of eight men each tensed themselves at the starting line. Sitting in the four-seat of the US Men’s was Sarasota-native Clark Dean, the lone holdover in the boat from Tokyo, who’d grown up rowing on the lake in Nathan Benderson Park. Dean knew what kind of pressure his boat was under. Men’s rowing eight is the flagship race of the regatta and one that America has a particularly significant history with—after being introduced to the Olympics in 1900, the United States claimed gold at 11 of the first 14 Olympic regattas. That storied history hadn’t followed the Americans into the 21st Century, however. The US had last medaled in the Olympics in 2008 and hadn’t won gold since 2004. Starting out hot was the boat’s main priority. Olympic rowing is akin to a drag race, after the first thousand meters, boats don’t typically pass each other. In other words, if you can’t get off the line fast enough, you’re toast. “We were super, super aggressive about training for the start and not getting left behind this year,” says Dean, referring to the 2023 World Championships in which the boat finished sixth. “Just like in the World Championships we had a good heat leading up to the final (they posted the top qualifying time), but the thought of ‘Can we do it in the final?’ is always in everyone’s mind. For the US Men’s eight, it hasn’t been since 2004 since we could really push off from the start. In 2008, they got bronze but never had a sniff at winning.”
And start off hot they did. The US boat exploded off of the start line, keeping early pace with medal favorites Great Britain and the Netherlands. From the rower’s perspective, the race is a strange paradox: in the moment, the five and a half-minute long race can feel like an eternity, but when looking back, it passes in the blink of an eye. All along, Dean and the rest of his crew are chasing more than just the other boats—they’re chasing an energy, a fleeting feeling of pure synchronization when all eight oars seem to row as one. “You can definitely feel the difference in those instances,” says Dean. “There are moments where you don’t have the temptation to look at the other boats because you’re thinking ‘No one can go this fast’. We’re either ahead or about to get ahead. You’re only going to get it for a few strokes here or there, but that’s what you’re searching for.” Dean knew that the US had a fast boat. After a disappointing finish in the World Championships in 2023, the US Men’s Eight had to earn their Olympic berth late, winning gold at the last qualifying regatta in June in Lucerne, Switzerland. “Part of what I attribute our success to is that by every other country’s standards we were a really new lineup, because we started rowing together in March and April, but by US standards we’d been practicing together for ages longer than other US boats,” says Dean. “The summer before we’d had less than two months to practice before the World Championships and before Tokyo we only had a month and a half.” With the boat set, Dean and his fellow crew mates were primed to compete for a medal. After a scorching start, the U.S. held third position behind Great Britain and the Netherlands, pulling, straining with all their might to eclipse their rivals. In the end, they didn’t, posting a time of 5:25.28, just under three seconds short of Great Britain, who took gold, and just 1.36 seconds behind Netherlands for silver. They did, however, make history and for that the entire country, Sarasota especially, should be proud.