Once an alternate, Alex Naddour clinches men's gymnastics Olympic spot on emotional night

ST. LOUIS – Alex Naddour dismounted the pommel horse and pointed to where his wife and infant daughter sat together in the stands, his eyes welling as he completed his first event of the night.

A couple hours later, the tears he had held back would flow freely.

All of the sacrifices – from the hours in the gym to the nights his wife slept on the other side of the house with their daughter so he could rest – had paid off here at the U.S. Olympic trials.

Four years after being an alternate for the London Olympics, Naddour made the five-man team for Rio along with Chris Brooks, Jake Dalton, Sam Mikulak and John Orozco.

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“I’m an Olympian finally. It feels good,” Naddour said. “The hard work the last four years, every single day in the gym, every mile at night time running around my neighborhood – I’d do it again. Any second.”

In the four years since Naddour went to London, much has changed. He and Hollie Vise – a world champion herself with the U.S. women’s team in 2003 -- married in 2015, and they had Lilah in February. The motivation behind his gymnastics shifted, and so did the work as he sought to become more than a pommel horse specialist.

Yet as he fought for a spot throughout a qualifying process that included two days of competition at nationals earlier this month and two more here this week, Naddour held onto the belief that he would have this feeling of red-eyed joy.

“I was my own pick for a long time,” he said.

He and Brooks have that in common. Brooks is making his first Olympic team at 29, after he too was an alternate in London.

On competition days this week, both gymnasts received a text message from 2012 Olympian Jonathan Horton. It was a photo of them in the stands in London, sent with the directive, “Make this not happen.”

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After a career full of injuries, serving as an alternate and thinking the Olympic team he thought he might make in his early 20s passed him by, Brooks did everything to force the selection committee to put him on the team. He was the only gymnast to hit all 24 routines without a major mistake.

“I definitely wasn’t planning on still doing gymnastics at this level at 29,” he said. “I was hoping to have reached my goals earlier. This was the hand of cards that I was dealt, so I’m trying to play it the best I can.”

On a night when Brooks and Naddour moved past their histories as alternates, they were the emotional weathervanes of the competition.

After a parallel bars routine where he had to will his body back into a handstand when his legs faltered, Brooks delivered one of the best high bar routines of his life. On floor, he received a standing ovation from current and former teammates as he sighed with relief following his final routine.

Naddour, meanwhile, scored 15.075 or higher on all four of his events. Pommel horse, as usual, was his best.

As Naddour prepared for that routine – one he knew he had to hit after an unusual slip off on the first day of competition earlier this month – he smelled his own uniform as a reminder. Hollie had washed it with the baby detergent.

“So everything was from our family,” Naddour said.

And for them, as it will be when he competes in Rio.