Men's gymnastics: Brody Malone and Fred Richard on the US Olympic team

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Fred Richard imagined this a long time ago. Everything.

The confetti. The flashing lights. The adrenaline rush of hearing your name called as an Olympian.

The charismatic 20-year-old, who made it his mission to make men's gymnastics relevant in the United States, knew that reaching the Olympics would be a vital step in the process.

And now it's here. Energetically.

Richard will headline the five-man U.S. team that heads to Paris next month with a legitimate chance at a medal after winning the Olympic trials on Saturday.

“It’s like a new mountain in my life,” Richard said. “And I’m ready to climb it.”

It certainly looks like it. Richard posted a steady and at times spectacular 170.500 all-around total over two days at the trials, just ahead of three-time national champion Brody Malone with 170.300.

Richard, known as Frederick Flips to his hundreds of thousands of social media followers, has spent years trying to put men's gymnastics in the spotlight through creative viral videos that often include collaborations with athletes from other sports.

The lights cannot be brighter than those under which Richard and his Olympic teammates Malone, Asher Hong, Paul Juda and Stephen Nedoroscik will compete at Bercy Arena.

Nine months after winning a bronze medal at the 2023 world championships, the men's programs are competing at a major international competition for the first time in nearly a decade. Richard and the rest of the Americans believe they can do even more this summer.

“It’s like we shouldn’t even be aiming for a medal,” said Richard, who also won a bronze in the all-around at worlds last fall. “We should be aiming for gold and we’ll find something.”

The Americans have spent the past three years overhauling their program after finishing far from the podium at the Tokyo Olympics. They revamped their scoring system, offering bonus points at national competitions to athletes who attempted more difficult skills.

The goal was to close the overall difficulty gap that had developed between the United States and longtime superpowers China and Japan. When the Americans greeted the judges for their first event in Tokyo, they were already six points behind, the difference in the cumulative difficulty of their routines compared to the teams they were chasing.

That gap will be reduced to two points when the United States takes the stage in Olympic qualifying on July 27, giving it a legitimate chance to finish on the podium.

(We're in) a much different position now, said high performance director Brett McClure. We will be able to control our own destiny.

And they will with Malone, 24, 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 is not perfect but better. His gymnastics could be too.

Malone has managed to methodically come back from the brink, though the last few weeks have been a bit of a blur. He didn't complete a full floor routine until May, though he doesn't look rusty. He won a national title earlier this month and would have passed Richard at the trials if he hadn't done a sloppy high bar routine Saturday.

Given where he was last fall when he watched the men's program he was supposed to lead between Tokyo and Paris unfold without him, Malone will more than accept it.

“It came to me really quickly. I'm just really grateful to all the medical staff and everybody 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 championship team, will join Malone and Richard to form the core of a relatively young U.S. team. Nedoroscik is 25 years old. Malone is 24 years old. Judah will be 23 years old on July 7. Richard and Hong are both 20 years old.

The quiet, unassuming Judah broke down in tears several times after the incident, while Hong was relieved after a somewhat nightmarish performance at the nationals, partly due to what he believes was rough treatment by the judges, which gave him little margin for error before the trials.

“It was kind of like a battle between me and the judges,” Hong said. “That was kind of the goal. Like, try to find something (wrong) in this routine, I'm challenging 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 shortly after the University of Minnesota cut its men's program, drank in every ovation during what could have been the final performance of his career.

As Wiskus walks away, Richard is about to climax. He began gravitating towards Paris a long time ago, while growing up in the suburbs of Boston. Now it's finally here and he's eager to show that there's a lot of substance beneath all that showmanship.

“I want to be an Olympic medalist, that’s my personality,” he said. “There is always more to do. And I look forward to continuing to fight for it. »

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

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