MINNEAPOLIS – Massachusetts will be well represented at the USA Men’s Gymnastics Team at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Local competitors Fred Richard and Stephen Nedoroscik both secured their places in the squad on Saturday.
Richard is a graduate of Stoughton High School and Nedoroscik is originally from Worcester.
Richard, 20, will headline the five-member U.S. team that heads to Paris next month with a legitimate shot at a medal after winning the Olympic trials on Saturday.
What Fred Richard said about making the Olympic team
“It’s like a new mountain in my life,” Richard said. “And I’m ready to climb it.”
It certainly looks that way. Richard put down a steady and sometimes spectacular two-day all-around total of 170.500 during trials, just ahead of three-time national champion Brody Malone on 170.300.
Richard, known to his hundreds of thousands of social media followers as “Frederick Flips,” has spent years trying to put a spotlight on men’s gymnastics through creative viral videos that often feature collaborations with athletes in other sports.
The lights don’t get brighter than the ones under which Richard and his Olympic teammates Nedoroscik, Malone, Asher Hong and Paul Juda will compete at Bercy Arena.
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
Fred Richard says the US should aim for a gold medal
Nine months after winning bronze at the 2023 world championships — the first time the men’s program has won a major international competition in nearly a decade — Richard and the rest of the Americans believe they can do even more this summer.
“It’s like we don’t even have to aim for a medal,” said Richard, who also earned a bronze in the all-around at Worlds last fall. “We have to aim for gold and we’re going to land somewhere.”
The Americans have overhauled their program over the past three years after finishing well off the podium at the Tokyo Olympics. They have revamped their scoring system and given bonus points at domestic meets to athletes who attempt more challenging skills.
The goal was to close the gap in overall difficulty that had opened between the US and long-time superpowers China and Japan. When the Americans greeted the judges for their first event in Tokyo, they were already six points behind, the difference between the cumulative difficulty of their routines compared to the teams they were chasing.
That difference will be just two points when the US takes the field in the Olympic qualifiers on July 27. This gives them a real chance of finishing on the podium.
“(We’re) in a very different position now,” said high performance director Brett McClure. “We are going to be able to determine our own destiny.”
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
Who is on the USA Gymnastics team?
And they’ll do it with the 24-year-old Malone, whose career was nearly derailed by a devastating right knee injury in March 2023. Three surgeries, 15 months and countless hours of physical therapy later, Malone’s knee isn’t perfect, but it is better. And maybe his gymnastics is, too.
Malone methodically worked his way back from the brink, though the past few weeks have been a blur. It wasn’t until May that he put together a full floor routine, though he didn’t look particularly rusty. He rode to a national title earlier this month and would have outdone Richard at the trials if it weren’t for a sloppy—by his standards—high bar routine on Saturday.
Considering where he was last fall when he saw how the men’s program between Tokyo and Paris, of which he was supposed to be the standard bearer, went without him, Malone will just have to make do.
“It came to me really quickly, I’m just super grateful for all the medical staff and everyone helping 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 Cup team, will join Malone and Richard as the core of what will be a relatively young U.S. team. Nedoroscik is 25. Malone is 24. Judah turns 23 on July 7. Richard and Hong are all 20.
The quiet and unassuming Judah burst into tears several times in the aftermath, while Hong was relieved after a somewhat nightmarish performance at the national championships – partly due to what he said was rough treatment by the judges who gave him little room for error on the road to legal action.
“It was kind of a battle between me and the judges,” Hong said. “That was kind of the goal. Like, ‘Try to find something (wrong) with this routine, I dare you.'”
Khoi Young and Shane Wiskus will serve as alternates. Wiskus, a member of the 2020 Olympic team, is retiring at the end of the competitive season. The Minnesota native — who left his home state not long after the University of Minnesota shut down its men’s program — soaked up every ovation during what may have been the final performance of his career.
While Wiskus takes a step back, Richard is about to enter his prime. He started pointing to Paris way back when he was growing up in the Boston suburbs. Now the time has finally come and he would like to show that there is plenty of substance underneath all that showmanship.
“I want to be a medalist at the Olympics, that’s my personality,” he said. “There’s always more to do. And I’m excited to just keep going for it.”
