MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Fred Richard envisioned this a long time ago. Completely.
The confetti. The flashing lights. The adrenaline rush when he hears his name as an Olympian.
The charismatic 20-year-old, who has made it his life’s work to help men’s gymnastics gain prominence in the United States, knew that participating in the Olympics would be a crucial step in that process.
And now it is here. With emphasis.
Richard will lead the five-man U.S. team that heads to Paris next month with a win in Saturday’s Olympic qualifiers and a real chance of a medal.
“It’s like a new mountain in my life,” said Richard. “And I’m ready to climb it.”
It certainly looks that way. Richard achieved a stable and at times spectacular two-day total of 170.500 at the trials, just ahead of three-time national champion Brody Malone with 170.300.
Richard, known as “ Frederick Flips “, as he writes to his hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, has been trying for years to put men’s gymnastics in the spotlight through creative viral videos in which he often collaborates with athletes from other sports.
It can’t be brighter than the lights under which Richard and his Olympic teammates Malone, Asher Hong, Paul Juda and Stephen Nedoroscik will compete in the Bercy Arena.
Nine months after winning the bronze medal at the 2023 World Championships – the first for the men’s team at a major international competition in nearly a decade – Richard and the rest of the Americans believe they are capable of even more this summer.
“It’s like we shouldn’t even aim for a medal,” said Richard, who also won bronze in the all-around at the World Championships last fall. “We should aim for gold and we will achieve something.”
The Americans have spent the last three years revamping their program after finishing far off the podium at the Tokyo Olympics, revamping their scoring system and offering bonus points at national competitions for athletes who attempted more challenging routines.
The goal was to close the gap in difficulty between the United States and longtime superpowers China and Japan. When the Americans greeted the judges at their first competition in Tokyo, they were already six points behind – the difference between the overall difficulty of their routines and the teams chasing them.
That gap will be reduced to two points when the USA takes to the court at the Olympic qualifiers on July 27, giving them a real chance of making the podium.
“We are in a very different situation now,” said Brett McClure, director of high performance sport. “We will be able to take our destiny into our own hands.”
And they will do it with the 24-year-old Malone, whose career was nearly ended by a devastating injury to his right knee in March 2023. Three surgeries, 15 months and countless hours of physical therapy later, Malone’s knee isn’t perfect, but it’s better. His gymnastics might be, too.
Malone has methodically worked his way back from the brink, although the last few weeks have flown by. He didn’t do a full floor routine until May, although he doesn’t seem rusty. He easily took a national title earlier this month and would have bested Richard at trials had it not been for a sloppy – by his standards – high bar routine on Saturday.
Considering the condition he was in last fall when the men’s program he was supposed to be the standard bearer of between Tokyo and Paris continued without him, Malone will more than be able to handle this.
“It crept up really quickly. I’m just super grateful to all the medical staff and everyone who helped me get back to this point,” Malone said. “I really couldn’t have done it without them.”
Juda and Hong, members of last year’s world champion team, will join Malone and Richard to form the core of a relatively young American team. Nedoroscik is 25. Malone is 24. Juda turns 23 on July 7. Richard and Hong are just 20.
The quiet and modest Juda burst into tears several times afterward, while Hong was relieved after his somewhat nightmarish performance at the national championships – partly because he felt he had little room for error due to the rough treatment he received from the judges before the trials.
“It was like a battle between me and the judges,” Hong said. “That was kind of the goal. Like, ‘Try to find something (wrong) with this number, I challenge you.'”
Khoi Young and Shane Wiskus will serve as replacements. Wiskus, a member of the 2020 Olympic team, will retire at the end of the competition season. The Minnesota native – who left his home state shortly after the University of Minnesota discontinued its men’s program – enjoyed every ovation in what could be the final performance of his career.
While Wiskus is retiring, Richard is on the verge of his big breakthrough. Even when he was growing up in a Boston suburb, he began to look to Paris. Now the time has finally come and he is determined to show that there is a lot of substance behind all this sensationalism.
“I want to win medals at the Olympic Games, that’s my personality,” he said. “There is always more to achieve. And I look forward to continuing to work towards that.”
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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
