Emma Malabuyo is defining her own success at the Paris Olympics
Emma Malabuyo sat in her chair with her eyes shut. Nearby, UCLA head coach Janelle McDonald was shaking as the pair waited for the vault score of Kazakhstan’s Aida Bauyrzhanova – what would be the deciding factor in Malabuyo’s bid for the Olympics.
Malabuyo put up a 50.398 all-around score in the first session of the 2024 Asian Championships. She just needed to hold her lead over the remaining eligible gymnasts in the second session to earn a spot at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Bauyrzhanova proved to be Malabuyo’s biggest competition for the spot. She ultimately scored a 12.966 on that fateful vault, which was just enough for Malabuyo to finish with the bronze in the all-around and punch her ticket to Paris.
When the final standings came in and revealed Malabuyo had qualified, everyone in her group began screaming in excitement and going for hugs. Malabuyo’s dad started crying, and her mom joined in the crying over facetime shortly after.
Malabuyo qualified by the smallest of margins, with a 0.033 lead over Bauyrzhanova for the spot – a margin reminiscent of when Tatiana Gutsu defeated Shannon Miller for the 1992 Olympic all-around crown by 0.012. In the era of the open code, this tiny margin is even more rare, especially in an all-around competition where there are typically more differences in difficulty value and scores.
Malabuyo fell short of qualifying for the 2024 Games through the World Cup series a month prior, and she had just four weeks to create an all-around program to give her Olympic dreams one last shot by attempting to qualify at the Asian Championships. Malabuyo, who switched nationalities from the United States to the Philippines in 2023, had not competed in the all-around since her freshman year at UCLA. She had not competed in the all-around in elite since 2021, when she was an alternate for the U.S. team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
“She had come into the gym [after the Doha World Cup] still a little bit disappointed,” McDonald said. “And she was sitting on the floor tearing up with with Brooklyn [Moors] … I walked in and we sat down, and I said, ‘You can get an all-around program together.’ And within five minutes, she was up running around saying, ‘Okay, let’s get after it.'”
“That’s just such a special quality that she has,” McDonald added. “After the competition at the Asian Championships, she looked at me and she said, ‘I don’t even care what happens. I’m so proud of what I did today,’ and I think that is just such a testament to the goals she has, but also the drive and the passion for what she does.”
Malabuyo chose to go for it and quickly worked to build an all-around program. This included getting her Yurchenko full back on vault and adding difficulty to her bars routine. Malabuyo hadn’t competed vault all season for UCLA or at any of the World Cups, and she only competed bar routines constructed for the NCAA level over the last year. Still, she managed to get her vault and bars skills back, and she ended up placing third in her first elite meet competing all-around in three years.
“I was happy that all that hard work paid off, and just thinking about how I did it for my family, did it for my coaches, for the Philippines, too … I was just so happy and excited,” Malabuyo said, wearing an Olympic rings necklace.
Malabuyo will join fellow Filipino Americans Aleah Finnegan and Levi Jung-Ruivivar in becoming the first Filipina gymnasts to represent the Philippines in gymnastics at the Olympic Games since Evelyn Magluyan did so in 1964. The Philippines only won its first ever Olympic gold medal in any sport in 2020. The nation brought home a total of four Olympic medals from Tokyo – the first time the country had won multiple medals in a single Olympic Games since Los Angeles 1932.
“It’s also so inspiring to present and future generations too. Being able to represent the Philippines, and having two other women alongside of me, is such a big accomplishment. We just wanna bring so much pride and joy to everybody in the Philippines.”
Malabuyo has already made history for the Philippines in the meantime, taking home a floor gold medal at the Asian Championships and becoming the first Filipina woman to win gold at that meet in the process.
“After finishing that floor routine, I went to Janelle, and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh! I think I’ve made history. I think I’m the first Filipina to win a gold medal on the floor at Asian championships.’ It’s just such a bigger purpose than just for myself, and I’m doing it for the Philippines.”
Defining Her Own Success
Malabuyo called the days after she failed to qualify to the Games through the World Cup series one of the lowest points of her life. She pulled multiple all-nighters because she was unable to sleep and couldn’t stop crying. Still, Malabuyo did not let that result control her or keep her from going after her dreams.
From the get-go of this journey, Malabuyo has set her own standard for what she wanted to accomplished and how she would handle her Olympic quest. Prior to UCLA getting eliminated from the NCAA postseason during the regional semifinals, Malabuyo made it clear she would go to NCAA nationals over the Doha World Cup. Even when the decision came under scrutiny, she never wavered in what she would do.
When she didn’t qualify in Doha, she decided to go up against seemingly stacked odds and try to secure her spot in Paris at the Asian Championships, where she would have to compete in the all-around for the first time in years. She did it.
“Success isn’t measured by a placement, a medal, or anything like that. It’s the way you define it, and I really thought my success was being able to bounce back from Qatar at such a low moment and change that around, shift my mindset, bring back that motivation and just give it my all. I thought that was success to me – was competing all four events.”
She also decided to prioritize execution and “beautiful, clean gymnastics” over difficulty. While that decision appeared to backfire in Doha, it paid off wonderfully for Malabuyo at the Asian Championships. As her competitors faltered, Malabuyo was able to rely on routines she was comfortable with, particularly on beam and floor. Her floor also got a boost from her UCLA background, where the emphasis on dance and expression helped Malabuyo earn high execution marks and reduced artistry deductions – a big storyline this quad.
“Artistry is such a big deduction now in elite gymnastics, and judges want to be able to engage with the gymnast, so I think UCLA does such an incredible job with the performance aspect, but not only performing, but having fun and being yourself out there,” Malabuyo said. “And I think when I’m being myself out there, I’m able to really connect with the audience and connect with the judges.”
Of course, much of the credit for the performance quality goes to Malabuyo herself. Along with executing the detailed UCLA choreography, Malabuyo places as much emphasis on selling each dance move as she does on landing a tumbling pass or hitting her leaps. Even if she’s nervous before her next skill, it’d be hard to tell with the way she stays present for each movement of a routine. She adds her own flair as well, whether that’s performing the Carlton on beam or finishing her skills and routines with her signature smile.
“For Emma to go out there and just compete with so much joy and so much confidence, you can’t ask for anything better than that as a coach,” McDonald said … “People from different delegations came up and commented about how joyous her routine was, how fun it was to watch, and also that there was not that many deductions taken for artistry, which is something that every elite gymnast right now is striving for.”
Looking ahead
Malabuyo is planning to go all out for the Olympic Games. She’s been working on upgrades, including a double layout on floor. Since qualifying, she also posted training clips of potential beam upgrades, including a standing Arabian, a back handspring connected to two layout stepouts (over her usual one layout stepout in NCAA), a double back tuck dismount, and connecting her front aerial and split jump to a Korbut.
“Now that I’ve qualified, I just wanna basically go for my life out there and give it my all. I’m gonna hopefully be upgrading on floor with maybe my double layout, and then on beam, getting back some old skills too.”
McDonald, who traveled with Malabuyo to Uzbekistan for the Asian Championships, will be in Paris with her gymnast as well, adding to the slew of NCAA gymnastics coaches who will be in attendance.
“I’m very excited to be traveling with Emma for the Paris Olympics, and it really is a dream come true … [it’s] something that I’m gonna remember forever,” McDonald said.
“I always want our student athletes to feel like they’ve pushed themselves to become the best that they can be … and I think Emma is a perfect example of that … She wants to dream really big, and I think that it’s an inspiration for future Bruin generations to come.”
