Destination Paris: American gymnast Frederick Richard wants to bring his sport to the masses

ANN ARBOR, Michigan — Editor’s note: Olympic athletes competing in the marquee sports of gymnastics, swimming and track and field train for one shot at gold every four years with little margin for error. The Associated Press followed several of those athletes during their preparations for the Paris Games, including Frederick Richard.

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All the rites of passage for a teenager were available to Frederick Richard while growing up in the Boston suburbs.

Football games. Dances. Parties. Hanging out.

Texts would pop into his phone regularly to see if he was up for doing something. And Richard's response was almost always some version of “thanks, but not today. I've got practice.”

The invitations to do the “cool things” and the inherent peer pressure that comes along with it were constantly outweighed by the gymnast's unwavering belief in himself and the incessant pull of his chosen sport, as anonymous and uncool as it is perceived to be — at least when you're a guy anyway — in the United States.

“It was hard in the sense that I felt kind of alone in my journey and left out and things,” he said. “But I’m addicted to this. I’m addicted to the dream."

A dream that extends far beyond just the Olympics.

Don't get Richard wrong. The charismatic 20-year-old knows when he steps onto the floor at Bercy Arena in Paris on July 27, it will be the culmination of his still very young life's work. But it is just one step in a plan that extends far beyond any single skill, any single meet, any single medal.

Frederick Flips

The president and founder of “ Frederick Flips,” a sports apparel company, doesn't see himself as just an athlete. He's a CEO. An influencer. A YouTuber. A budding visionary who counts Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan among his heroes.

And yes, he knows what invoking those names entails.

“I’m not trying to copy things and follow paths that have been made,” Richard said. “I'm always like ‘What am I going to do the next 10 years? How do I create this path that’s never been done, this career? It doesn’t exist.’”

No, it doesn't.

Men's gymnastics has been largely an afterthought in the U.S. for decades, often operating in the shadows of a women's program that regularly churns out gold medalists who reach “first name only” status within the sport.

Richard is only too aware that this kind of status doesn't exist for American men. He's trying to change that one performance, one viral social media post, one television appearance at a time.

“One of my goals is to have someone walk down the street one day and you ask them to name a male gymnast and they actually name a male gymnast,” he said.

What's in a name

Which brings the University of Michigan junior to his name.

Fred? Frederick? He's bounced between preferences for a while before settling on both depending on the setting. Sure “Fred” works in the U.S. but “Frederick Richard” — a nod to his French heritage — carries a little more sophistication internationally.

If you want to build a brand, after all, you've got to know your audience.

Richard took a significant step in getting his name — whichever one you settle on — out when he earned bronze in the all-around at the 2023 world championships, the first by an American man at a major international meet in 13 years. It was a massive step for a men's program that's been running in place for the better part of a decade.

It should have been a joyous moment. It wasn't. Not exactly anyway. Richard's high bar routine during the final rotation wasn't his best. He thought his chances at a medal were gone. Then others in the field struggled too, leading to a result Richard wasn't sure he deserved.

It wasn't until Great Britain's James Hall came over to congratulate him that Richard softened. The exchange offered a reminder that for all of the ways Richard is trying to become a crossover star while making his sport more accessible to the masses, the reality is he remains “obsessed with being an athlete, pushing the limits.”

Yes, it can be easy to get caught up in everything that goes into trying to build a brand. Yet underneath Richard's breeziness is a resolve based not on swagger or ambition but something deeper.

“You see Fred in (the gym) and he’s just grinding and just sweating and just pushing nonstop,” said Michigan and Olympic teammate Paul Juda. “And I’m going, ‘I should be doing that.’”

Richard has no intention of becoming one of those influencers who become only loosely affiliated with what made them influential in the first place.

He only truly feels at home when he's in the gym with chalk on his hands, tinkering with a routine or a skill or diving into videos of the men he will be competing against in Paris.

He knows a medal of any color would be huge for the U.S. program. But why settle for simply getting on the podium? Why not focus on getting to the top even knowing that defending Olympic champion Daiki Hashimoto of Japan will arrive in Paris as a heavy favorite to repeat?

That is simply not Richard's way. When Juda, Richard and the rest of the U.S. team arrived at the world championships last year, there was a sense of relief among the group on having made it. That simply wasn't good enough for Richard.

“(He's) like, ‘Yeah, but what about the cooler thing? Let’s do the cooler thing and let’s get people to talk about the cooler thing,'" Juda said.

Higher goals

Richard is not programmed to aim lower. If he was, maybe he would have bailed on all those weekend practices and gone to a party instead. Maybe he would have let frequently being the only Black athlete at a meet filled with predominantly white competitors get to him.

It never did. Partly because he says he always felt accepted. Partly because he understood the opportunity in front of him if he could just stick with it.

“Kids look up to these big names,” he said. “But I wasn’t seeing anybody who was Black like me, dominating on the world stage (in men's gymnastics). ... I wanted to be that person. I wanted the gyms to fill up with Black kids. That's still one of my big goals. That's why I do this too."

It's one of the main priorities in Richard's ever-evolving “to-do” list.

Some of his favorite days are mornings that begin with a brainstorming session with his creative team, one that has expanded over the last year to include two camera operators and a business partner, among others.

He switched majors from business to film, TV and media. His long-term goals include expanding his clothing line, doing a little acting and serving as a producer.

“Every day I grow, I learn something new,” he said. “Every day I get slightly more clarity on what I want to do, what I want to become. And I just now I just feel like anything’s possible.”

That sense of clarity also provides Richard with a sense of freedom. Maybe he sticks everything at the Olympics and comes home with a medal or three in his carry-on. Or maybe he doesn't. He is putting everything he has into this moment, yes. But he will not let the outcome define him.

“(Either way) I’ll go home and live my amazing life that I’m already living," he said. "So let me have fun showing off, and then I think I’ll show off.”