In Olympics Gymnastics, We Got a Glimpse of the Sport’s Future
Christian Blauvelt
There was a fantastic moment to end the artistic gymnastics competition at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. One that summed up the positive, fulfilling vibe of the entire proceedings — a vibe that been set from the opening ceremony.
Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time, had just taken silver in the floor exercise event final, along with Jordan Chiles, the bronze. Together, these two U.S. stars bowed to the woman who’d won gold, Brazil’s Rebecca Andrade — a gymnast who has turned in some of the most consistently strong routines of any athlete in the world the past few years (and had picked up a gold in vault at Tokyo), but has, by any measure, been a bit in Biles’ shadow in the past. That bow was a game-recognizing-game moment so worthy of Biles’ Olympic spirit and that of the whole U.S. women’s gymnastics team after one of their most successful showings ever.
In many ways, this may have been a last hurrah for this configuration of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team. Biles, after collecting three more golds and a bronze at these Games in one of the great comebacks of all time, is likely to retire. She’d be 31 at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, which would be an almost unprecedented age to be competing in the sport (Biles is already affectionately referred to by her teammates as their “grandmother” — at 27). There’s also a very good chance Suni Lee, also making an astonishing comeback following her diagnosis of two separate kidney diseases after winning the all-around gold at the 2021 Games, will retire as well. But it is possible the lure of a home-country Olympics might be too much for either to resist for a return, and at a press conference over the weekend Biles already suggested as much.
Regardless, Paris 2024 felt like a time for one last hurrah for the U.S. women’s team, while laying the groundwork for the future. And the future looks like this: More global, more inclusive, and ever more social media savvy. The way the U.S. men’s pommel horse specialist Stephen Nedoroscik went viral in the leadup to his performance that clinched a bronze in the team final was a level of attention the U.S. men have not had in a long time. Wearing his glasses, his eyes closed in beatific meditation as he was visualizing his performance to come, Nedoroscik drew comparisons to Clark Kent — once those glasses come off, he’s Superman. In fact, it’s hard to remember a U.S. male Olympian becoming a meme in that manner since a hoodie-wearing Michael Phelps angrily stared off into space at Rio in 2016 while rival Chad LeClos shadow-boxed in front of him in an attempt to psych him out.
That was a purely organic “going viral” moment for Nedoroscik. But it’s impressive to see the way his fellow gymnast on the men’s team, , has actively harnessed social media to raise more interest in his sport. He’s been candid about both the loneliness of being a Black man in gymnastics and, frankly, the lack of interest in the U.S. men’s team in general. Richard has single-handedly gone a long way to change that. (Think of the way “Triangle of Sadness” pointedly put a spotlight on modeling being a field where women get far more attention and money than men — gymnastics is another.) With more than 1.5 million followers as “Frederick Flips” across and TikTok, and studying film and media at the University of Michigan to develop the tools to better tell his story on those platforms, he’s documented his journey like few gymnasts before him. One of the NBC broadcasters during the men’s team competition predicted that the 20-year-old Richard will be the best male gymnast in the world in four years at the LA Games. Their team bronze felt very much like a throat-clearing start for much greater things to come — for most of those reading this, there has not been a more exciting U.S. men’s gymnastics team in our lifetimes. And Richard’s efforts at reaching a new audience, even posing with Flavor Flav (one of the real boosters of this Olympics, the Public Enemy legend even helped raise money to support the U.S. women’s water polo team) on his Instagram, should raise more interest in the sport in the future.
Flavor Flav wasn’t the only one in the stands during the gymnastics finals: This was as star-studded a happening as you could find at the Games, with Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Tom Cruise, Jessica Chastain, Lady Gaga, Spike Lee, Serena Williams, and Tom Brady all watching the proceedings at some point. They were all there to support Team USA, of course, but another storyline for gymnastics at these Olympics was how much more global this competition was. Countries that had not normally been Olympics powerhouses in the sport suddenly were: The Philippines had never won a gold medal at the Olympics full stop until a weightlifting gold in 2021 — in Paris, their 24-year-old star Carlos Yulo won two golds in gymnastics alone (for the vault and floor exercise), while Brazil and Italy continued their ascendance in gymnastics also.
There’s never been an Olympics competition where it felt like this sport is for everyone quite the way that feeling came across at Paris 2024. These athletes didn’t just compete for the podium, they competed for eyeballs in our attention economy — and anyone looking to make an impact in any field, film and TV included, would do well to take a look.
