After the sixth and final rotation of the United States men’s gymnastics Olympic trials ended Saturday afternoon, most of the gymnasts had to wait to confirm whether they had a ticket to Paris.
But Frederick Richard could sit easy on the comfy white couches on the Target Center floor, knowing his performance at the trials had already booked him a spot on the plane. No waiting for numbers to be crunched, no fretting for decisions to be deliberated.
Richard’s first-place finish in the trials all-around competition (170.500), plus his top-three finishes in three of the six events, earned him an “autolock” spot on the Olympic team. With each high score, Richard would pumped his fists and pumped up the crowd.
“You can expect from me and the team, some medals in Paris,” Richard told the crowd after the last rotation. The 20-year-old University of Michigan gymnast beamed on the jumbotron. “I’m flipping to Paris, let’s go.”
A mathematical formula would decide the rest of the team.
And the math spoke: Asher Hong, Brody Malone, Paul Juda and Stephen Nedoroscik rounded out the rest of the men’s gymnastics team. Shane Wiskus and Khoi Young will travel as alternates.
Wiskus, a Spring Park native and University of Minnesota alum, finished third in the all-around to the delight of the hometown crowd and spectators in “Shane Wiskus Fan Club” T-shirts. A 2020 Tokyo Olympian, Wiskus said he “felt the Minnesota love” and performed well on both days of trials, but his all-around consistency was outweighed by other gymnasts’ higher scores in individual events.
This often-referenced formula considered the gymnasts’ performance at the trials and this summer’s U.S. Championships. But it was not as clear-cut as taking the top five all-around performers, plus alternates. At the Olympic finals in Paris, each nation will choose three team members to compete in each event, mixing and combining their rosters to max out the difficulty of their routines and their potential scores.
If the formula was a puzzle, Wiskus’ pieces just didn’t fit.
That’s how an event specialist like Stephen Nedoroscik fit into the picture. The University of Illinois alum is a world champion in pommel horse, a historically weak event for the U.S. men’s team. So, by bringing Nedoroscik, the team has a greater chance of medaling in the individual event and covering a weak spot in the team event.
Two members of last year’s world championships team, Young and Yul Moldauer, had shaky trials performances. Young’s difficult vault and third-place all-around finish at the U.S. championships helped him secure an alternate spot.
In the trials all-around standings, Malone, the reigning U.S. all-around champion, finished second (170.300), bouncing back after falling on high bar in Saturday’s first rotation. Malone, who suffered a severe leg injury in March 2023 that required three surgeries, heads to his second Olympics, like Wiskus.
Hong, a 20-year-old who competes at Stanford, hung behind Richard in second for most of the night until a fall on pommel horse knocked him to fifth. Still, the night’s best scores on vault, rings and parallel bars worked in Hong’s favor. Juda finished fourth, behind Wiskus.
After his last rotation on rings, Donnell Whittenburg, 29, the oldest gymnast of the field who was a member of five world championships teams but never competed at the Olympics, earned a standing ovation from the crowd.
The U.S. men’s gymnastics team will look to earn its first Olympic medal since 2008 at the Paris Summer Games, which will hold its artistic gymnastics competition from July 27 to August 5.
