Artistic Profile: Fred Richard is Changing Men’s Gymnastics — All From the Back of a Tour Bus

If you search up the account FrederickFlips on social media, it feels like a friend drawing a curtain back on a world that was previously inaccessible. Frederick Richard — who you may have seen on TV this summer spinning and swinging his way to the men’s individual all-around final and a historic bronze in the team all-around — invites viewers into his training sessions, where he documents learning new skills and warming up for competitions. Richard has fun, too: There are YouTube videos of him going head-to-head with other D1 athletes in sports swaps, and one video shows him recreating the crane kick from “Karate Kid.”

Despite the online antics, Richard is grounded and mature in his interview with The Crimson, which comes as no surprise. From his social media presence and gymnastics training to studying film and media at the University of Michigan, it’s fair to say that he’s got a lot on his plate.

“I’m balancing school and trying to be the best gymnast in the world,” Richard said.

With all this comes an even loftier goal: increasing the visibility of men’s gymnastics.

In the words of his Olympic teammate Stephen Nedoroscik, “Men’s gymnastics hasn’t had its time in the spotlight in many years, but Fred is working harder than ­anybody else to change that.” As part of the Gold Over America Tour, Richard is doing exactly that.

Richard is a member of the second iteration of the Gold Over America Tour. The first was three years ago, after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Simone Biles’s widely televised struggles with the twisties. That inaugural tour featured an all-female cast and functioned as a celebration of women’s sports. In its sophomore edition, though, the men are coming along.

“[Men’s and women’s gymnastics] is different. It's still very, very flashy and very cool, and a lot of people love to see it,” Richard said. “But when people mention athletes, they don’t really know what to think of a male gymnast. Personality wise, who are they? So this is where we show our personality.”

Joining Richard are his Olympic teammates Paul Juda and Brody Malone, along with gymnasts Ian Gunther, Shane Wiskus, Yul Moldauer, Casimir Schmidt and Donnell Whittenburg. The Gold Over America Tour — cheekily acronymed to GOAT — is an opportunity to showcase men’s gymnastics, which generates comparatively less hype than women’s gymnastics. Richard describes a moment in the show where the gymnasts’s childhood photos and videos play on-screen, displaying their transformation from kids to Olympians. It’s poignant for Richard not merely because it’s a full-circle moment showing how far he’s come, but because he wants other young boys to have that feeling, too: that the sport was, in his words, “good to you.”

The tour stops over in TD Garden on Oct. 6 and 7, with a second date added after the first show sold out. It promises to be an electrifying homecoming for Richard, who was born in Boston and raised in Stoughton, under an hour away from the city.

“I just know the energy in the room is gonna be crazy,” Richard said. “I know everybody I know will be at that show, and it’s just gonna be so fun.”

When asked if he was planning anything special for those nights on tour, he hinted at practicing a new skill and debuting it in Boston if he can nail it in time. Regardless of whether this happens, though, Richard promises that everyone “will be very entertained.”

The tour is a rare opportunity for Americans to see their Olympic heroes perform up close and personal after a summer spent watching them flying through the air in Paris. But beyond that, it’s a chance for the gymnasts to showcase crazy flips and express their personalities in ways that are not possible in regimented competitions — where routines are constructed based on a complicated calculus of difficulty and execution.

Richard, along with the rest of the team, underwent 12-hour-long rehearsals for a week straight in preparation for the tour. In the show, the team flips and dances to trending songs, which means learning different choreographies in that one-week span. For Richard, it’s been a grueling process. But he’s also excited to push himself out of his comfort zone, both as a gymnast and a performer.

“I’ve added a couple skills that I haven’t competed in a long time,” Richard said. “I kind of use this tour as testing grounds to still do it with a little bit of pressure, but it’s not too much pressure if you mess up. But I haven’t messed up yet, which is good.”

All these performances across the U.S. build towards Richard’s goal of keeping eyes on men’s gymnastics as the Olympic fervor dies down. Even on the tour, he remains active on FrederickFlips, posting videos as he attempts new skills and hangs out with the other gymnasts on tour.

And just like in gymnastics, it’s a team effort. Nedoroscik, the pommel horse hero who rose to viral fame at the Olympics, is now competing in this season of “Dancing with the Stars,” and his teammates have visited him in the dance studio to cheer him on.

“We’re rooting for him. I think he can really do it,” Richard said. “It’s fun just to see all of us still pushing after this Olympics, to keep the eyes on the sport in different ways.”

Richard has his own eyes set on bigger dreams — the World Championships next year, the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and starting his own production company, FrederickFlips Productions. Ultimately, he hopes to follow the path of other pro athletes, partnering with larger companies and becoming an entrepreneur. From another person, this may sound mercenarial or money-grabbing. But for Richard, both on social media and in conversation, he emanates humility and likeability, which is why he has over a million followers between Instagram and TikTok. His relatability is what makes him the perfect ambassador for the sport.

In Biles’s words, “I think it gets really intimate when you get on Fred’s platform, just because how he talks to you.”

Even with these grand ambitions, Richard is having fun on tour.

“I can see the Hollywood sign right now,” he said, calling in from Los Angeles before an appearance on “America’s Got Talent.”

Richard is looking forward to the hectic and jam-packed month ahead. In particular, he’s excited to visit Detroit, the closest the tour is getting to the University of Michigan, and Brooklyn in New York City.

“I think the energy is pretty cool over there,” Richard said.

The tour promises to be a lot of change and a lot of work. It may be daunting for someone who’s not trying to change the world. But for Fred Richard, being constantly in motion is how he thrives.

—Staff writer Angelina X. Ng can be reached at angelina.ng@thecrimson.com.