Olympic gymnast Frederick Richard opens up about journey to the 2024 Paris Games and efforts to grow the sport
The U.S. men's gymnastics team won a bronze medal earlier this week at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, with Frederick Richard helping to lead the team to their first medal in the team event in 16 years.
The 20-year-old gymnast from Massachusetts isn't only captivating audiences at competitions, but also online as he works to grow the fan base for the sport.
Richard spends 10 hours a day in his gymnastics training center at the University of Michigan. It's been a lifelong passion.
"He was a very active child," Richard's mother, Ann-Marie Richard said. "He was always upside down in his crib. He was literally just on his two hands doing a handstand."
By age 2, Richard would follow his sister into her gymnastics class in Massachusetts.
"They tried to put me in gymnastics, and I wouldn't listen," Richard said. "So they basically kicked me out and said come back when he's older and can follow the rules."
He went back at 4 years old, and his journey hasn't stopped since. At age 8, he was competing and training so hard that he asked his parents to skip family vacations.
His mother said at the time he was at the gym a minimum of three hours per day and loving it. She said they encouraged him to try other sports, but Richard stuck with gymnastics — and it's paying off.
The University of Michigan gymnast finished first in the all-around at the U.S. Olympic trials in June, just weeks after his second place finish at the U.S. Championships.
At 20 years old, he's the youngest man to compete in the sport at the Olympics since 1972, but it goes beyond competing. For Richard, it's his personal mission to get more people interested and involved in men's gymnastics.
Using social media to attract new fans
"I grew up in a gym that if you're lucky, 10% of the people in the room are male gymnasts and the rest are women," he said. "I grew up not even wanting to tell people that I do gymnastics … It's why I want to get as many kids into the sport as possible, as many Black kids into the sport as possible because that was another thing I struggled with growing up."
Social media has helped Richard put a spotlight on the sport. His more than 1 million Instagram and TikTok followers know him as "Frederick Flips."
In one post, he and Olympic champion Simone Biles challenge one another to show the differences between men's and women's gymnastics.
"In gymnastics, you have a specific code book, you have to follow the rules. In social media there are no rules. I can do my gymnastics however I want and get millions of views."
In the beginning, his parents admitted that they were concerned about Richard's use of social media.
"The only thing that worried me was by doing that, 'How much time are you taking from gymnastics?'" said his dad, Carl Richard. "And he told me he's helping to grow the sport."
Looking back at a video of a competition from when he was a kid, the college gymnast turned Olympic medalist had a message for his younger self.
"I just know at that time I was having a lot of fun and just doing what I loved. And so I wouldn't change a thing, and I would just say, 'You're doing amazing.'"