The U.S. Men’s Gymnastics All-Around Final Will See Close Friends Competing

To understand the relationship between Frederick Richard and Paul Juda, the latter likes to tell the following story: when the two went to compete at the world championships in Antwerp, Belgium, last year, Juda remarked about how cool it was to be at the competition, and to be competing for the U.S. Richard’s response? What about the cooler thing—winning a medal.

They both earned a bronze medal in the team event, and Richard also took home a bronze in the all-around competition—even cooler.

Juda followed Richard’s lead in Paris at their first Olympics and maybe even upstaged him a bit. After Brody Malone, widely expected to compete in the all-around competition on July 31 along with Richard, fell off high bars twice and stumbled in his floor routine during the qualification round, it was Juda and Richard who had scored enough points to qualify and move on to the all-around final. “Today would have been one of those things where I got to say I did an all-around at the Olympics,” Juda said of competing on all six events in men’s gymnastics during the qualification round. “But to be making an all-around final, I think that’s the cooler thing.”

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The training and teammates helped the U.S. men earn bronze in the team event at the Bercy Arena on July 29, the first time the U.S. men have made the podium in that event in nearly 20 years. Both are at University of Michigan; Richard will be a junior in the fall and Juda is a graduate student and co-captain of the men’s gymnastics team. In Paris, the two are rooming together but they will compete against one another in the men’s all-around event.

But it’s a friendly rivalry. “It means a lot,” Richard said of competing with his training mate. “We were both in the gym, pushing each other, grinding, and it shows. It’s going to be really fun, because we get to have another teammate competition, and to have my closest teammate next to me is just exciting.”

Richard is a world medalist in the all-around, and Juda knows that his difficulty scores may not not be high enough to bring him to the podium in Paris, which will likely be dominated by Chinese and Japanese gymnasts. But the opportunity to compete in the event is one of the items Juda listed on his whiteboard of bucket list goals. “A couple of months ago, maybe even a couple of years ago, I don’t think I would have been able to do that,” Juda said of his solid performances in the pressure-packed environment of the qualification round. He’s been working on the mental side of competing, which gave him the confidence to be the first member of the U.S. team on most of the apparatus in the sessions in Paris so far. He maintained that steadfastness in the team event, and earned his first Olympic medal.

Juda and Richard feed off of their different personalities—where Richard is bolder and outwardly confident, Juda is more introspective. But they shared an early propensity for the difficult skills and fearlessness needed for gymnastics. Richard was doing flips and handstands in his crib. "[His sister] used to call me to tell me what Frederick was doing when he was flipping in his crib: 'Mommy come see what Frederick is doing,'" says Richard’s mother Anne-Marie. Juda was similarly active as a boy, enough to make his parents apologize to his early coaches when he fidgeted so much before a competition. “I see my Paul is under the chair and over the chair and next to the chair, and moving his body everywhere,” says Ewa Bacher.

Both Juda and Richard started gymnastics classes when they were young; Richard was probably too young because he wanted to run under all of the apparatus and his first coach, Tom Fontecchio, asked his parents to bring him back when he was a little older and could follow directions better. But for the two boys, gymnastics was the perfect fit, with its challenging skills and discipline. And they were equally dedicated to the long hours in the gym required to reach the highest level in the sport.

“People ask me what encouragement I was giving to him; I didn’t need to,” says Bacher. She recalls once seeing her youngest son so tired juggling school and gymnastics that she gently suggested he could skip a practice or two. “He said ‘What are you talking about, I’m okay, I have so many things to do,’” she says of his reaction. “I learned my lesson.”

Richard stayed behind during family vacations so he wouldn’t miss training, bunking with his coach or neighbors. “He would give up anything for gymnastics,” says his sister Alexandra.

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Richard is balancing classes and becoming a growing social media star and a budding entrepreneur; he started an apparel company, Frederick Flips, whose logo is a silhouette of him in a backflip. He’s created a signature series of videos that test his abilities with those of other elite athletes on a number of different skills, such as who can jump the highest, or longest, and who has better dexterity. Juda is already establishing a reputation as a coach, working with young gymnasts to continue to grow the sport and advocate for maintaining men’s gymnastics programs at the collegiate level at a time when many universities are getting rid of them.

“It’s a great chemistry, it’s always good to have a teammate with you, it helps them to push each other to achieve [a] particular goal,” says Richard’s father, Carl.

Richard is also committed to growing men’s gymnastics, and in providing more opportunities for people of color in the sport. And he agrees with Juda that maintaining the collegiate system is a big part of accomplishing that. “I feel I’ve become a better man and a better person” by participating in collegiate gymnastics, he said. “The character building I’ve gone through in the last two years in NCAA at University of Michigan has been huge.”

It's the first Olympic experience for both Juda and Richard, and it doesn’t matter if they don’t earn a second medal. What matters is that they got to do the next cool thing.