MINNEAPOLIS: Frederick Richards is heading to his first Olympics after an all-around victory at the US gymnastics trials on Sunday, saying the US men will win “some medals in Paris”.
The United States has not won a men’s gymnastics medal since 2008.
Richard Brody will lead the effort to end the drought along with Malone, Paul Judah, Asher Hong and Steven Nedoroskik.
“I know that whichever team I pick, it’s the team that dies,” said 20-year-old Richard. “We don’t even have to aim for a medal, we have to win a gold medal.”
To earn an automatic berth, Richard must finish in the top three in at least three of the six machines in the trial, and he did just that – getting the bar high for the Target Center crowd.
She also placed first on the parallel bars and third on the floor exercise.
His total of 170.50 was more than twelve times better than Malone’s score earlier this month, when he threatened his career last year to win his third US national championship.
Malone suffered setbacks in Minneapolis this week, including a disappointing performance on the pommel horse and falling from the high bar for the 2022 world championship.
But the US has no doubt that it will make its second straight Olympic team, filled with experiments in complex calculations aimed at improving the results of the championships as well as the Games’ scoring potential.
Tokyo Olympic third-place Shane Wiscus lost to fourth-placed Yuda and fifth-placed Hong, who were part of last year’s world bronze medal team.
Fifth place went to pommel horse specialist Nedoroskik, who is the 2021 world champion and four-time national champion in the event. “It was a fair process based on the results of the two races,” men’s program director Brett McClure said. “The guys who did well enough to make the team did well enough to make the team.”
