PARIS — Forty-eight hours after helping lead Team USA to a historic bronze medal in the team competition, Paul Juda and Frederick Richard placed 14th and 15th, respectively, in the individual all-around final Wednesday night — their last event at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Richard, 20, got off to a shaky start with a fall on pommel horse in his first rotation and was unable to match some of the monster scores he put up in the team final, where the U.S. won its first Olympic medal since 2008. Juda was solid across the board but simply didn't have the difficulty in his routines to be in the mix for a medal.
The race for gold ultimately came down to the final rotation, with several gymnasts from China, Japan and Great Britain all jockeying for the podium.
Ultimately, it was Shinnosuke Oka of Japan who emerged with gold, giving Japan its fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in this event. Boheng Zhang and Ruoteng Xiao of China earned silver and bronze, respectively.
Japan's Daiki Hashimoto, the reigning world all-around champion, placed sixth.
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Richard, who competes collegiately at the University of Michigan, needed to be pretty close to perfect or benefit from mistakes Wednesday to make a run at the podium, simply because the competitors from China and Japan had more difficulty in their routines. He sneaked onto the podium at the end of the all-around competition at the 2023 world championships, becoming the first American man to medal at worlds since Jonathan Horton in 2010. But he was unable to replicate that feat in Paris.
Juda had said over the weekend that he was thrilled just to have made it to the all-around final. At various points over the past year, it was unclear whether he would even make the Olympic team. But he ended up being a key contributor.
The U.S. has not medaled in the men's all-around since the 2012 London Games, when Danell Leyva took home bronze. And it has not won an apparatus medal on the men's side since 2016, when Leyva won a pair of silvers.
Stephen Nedoroscik is the only men's gymnast left to compete in Paris for Team USA; He'll be in the eight-man pommel horse final Saturday.
Simone Biles and Suni Lee will compete for the U.S. in the women's all-around final Thursday night.
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Japan's Shinnosuke Oka won gold in the men's all-around final, scoring an 86.832 and finishing 0.233 ahead of China's Zhang Boheng in second and 0.468 ahead of China's Xiao Ruoteng in third. It is the fourth straight gold for the Japanese in the all-around final.
Here is the remaining Olympic gymnastics schedule.
Here is when Simone Biles competes at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Here are the individual final events the U.S. women's gymnastics team will compete in.
Frederick Richard and Paul Juda have wrapped up the all-around final. Richard, whose last turn was on floor (13.200), totaled 82.166 while Juda, who finished on pommel horse (13.866), finished with 82.197 points.
Frederick Richard has moved up to 12th after a strong high bar routine, though his score of 14.400 wasn't quite as high as his score in the team final Monday night. He'll wrap up the night on floor. Paul Juda, who is in 16th, will conclude on pommel horse.
The men's all-around final looks like it's going to come down to the wire. With just one rotation to go, there are now six men at the top separated by 1.1 points or less, each of them with a shot at earning an Olympic medal. Shinnosuke Oka of Japan is back in first, followed by Ruoteng Xiao and Boheng Zhang of China. Here are the top three in the standings after five rotations.
In the fourth rotation, Paul Juda scored a 13.766 on high bar. Frederick Richard scored a 14.133 parallel bars this rotation. The metaphorical ship has probably sailed for the Americans' hopes of earning a medal. Juda and Richard are sitting tied for 18th and 20th, respectively, with just two rotations remaining.
For all the hype entering Wednesday about China and Japan, it is actually the two Ukrainians — Oleg Verniaiev and Illia Kovtun — who are sitting in first and second, respectively, through four rotations.
Finishing with one, if not two, gymnasts on the podium would of course be incredibly meaningful for Ukraine, which brought a delegation of around 140 athletes to the Paris Olympics amid its war with Russian. Ukraine has so far just won a single bronze medal, in fencing. Here are the top three in the standings after four rotations.
After falling on pommel horse, Frederick Richard has actually performed better than he did in qualifying on both still rings and vault. But he still has a long way to go if he's going to get back in the picture for a medal. Richard is sitting 22nd in the 24-man field, about 2.5 points behind leader Shinnosuke Oka of Japan. He's also slightly behind U.S. teammate Paul Juda, who is sitting in 17th after recording a 13.866 on parallel bars.
Two gymnasts from Ukraine and two from China occupy the second through fifth spots, while reigning world champion Daiki Hashimoto of Japan is in 18th at the halfway point.
Here are the top three at the halfway point.
Brody Malone, three-time U.S. champion, missed out on tonight's event after a rough performance in qualifying. But he's on the floor helping out Frederick Richard and Paul Juda. Before Richard went on pommel horse, Malone brought the chalk bag onto the podium and helped adjust the height of the horse. Between rotations, he helped lug everyone's bags to the next event. Meanwhile, Asher Hong and Stephen Nedoroscik are watching from the stands.
While it might seem unusual, other gymnasts will often help their teammates during all-around and event finals. The Netherlands' Loran De Munck, for example, was helping his teammate, Frank Rijken.
As for the Americans, Frederick Richard followed up his fall on pommel horse with a solid routine on rings, while Paul Juda lost some points on his vault for taking a sideways hop out of the landing zone. They'll both by sitting in the back of the pack by the end of the second rotation.
Two of the favorites to win gold tonight, Boheng Zhang of China and Daishi Hakimoto of Japan, have both already had shocking mistakes in the early stages of the competition.
Zhang, who topped the leaderboard in qualifying, came up short on a tumbling pass on floor and leaned forward onto his head in his first rotation. Then, minuteslater, Hakimoto fell off the pommel horse after stalling on a handstand. Their mistakes left the door open for 20-year-old Shinnosuke Oka of Japan to move into the lead, at least for now.
Standings after the second rotation:
Of the two Americans in the field tonight, reigning world bronze medalist Frederick Richard entered with the best chance of winning an all-around medal. But his start on pommel horse won't help. Richard, 20, appeared off balance as soon as he mounted the apparatus and then fell off it altogether when his hand slipped during a flare. While there's still a lot of gymnastics to go, his score of 12.733 left him sitting 23rd out of 24 gymnasts after the first rotation.
Paul Juda, meanwhile, got off to a much more solid start on still rings: A 13.433 that was almost exactly on par with his performance in qualifying.
Here are the men's all-around final standings after the first rotation.
That would be Danell Leyva, who won a bronze at the 2012 Olympics in London. He was just the third American man to win an all-around medal at the Olympics, following Peter Vidmar's silver in 1984 and Paul Hamm's gold in 2004.
The U.S. men haven't had much more success in the all-around at the world championships. Frederick Richard's bronze last year was the first since 2010, when Jonathan Horton also won a bronze. The only other two all-around medals by U.S. men at the world championships were by Paul Hamm, who won gold in 2003, and Kurt Thomas, the silver medalist in 1979.
A gymnastics routine gets two scores: One for difficulty, also known as the D score or start value, and one for execution. Every gymnastics skill has a numerical value, and the D score is the sum total of the skills in a routine. The execution score, or E score, reflects how well the skills were done. A gymnast starts with a 10.0, and deductions for flaws and form errors are taken from there. Add the D and E scores together, and that’s your total for an apparatus. (Vault scores will always be higher because it’s a single skill.)
For years, the U.S. men’s gymnastics teams would insist they were within striking distance of the podium, that they were thisclose to winning a medal. But if the Americans ever wanted a medal, they were going to have to do more than talk.
“We had to trust the process,” said Sam Mikulak, a three-time Olympian who now coaches Brody Malone and Stephen Nedoroscik. “The first couple of years were rough.”
It worked, though. The bronze medal hanging around the U.S. men's necks Monday night is proof. The medal is the Americans’ first at an Olympics since 2008, when they also won a bronze. It comes a year after they snapped a nine year drought at the world championships, also with a bronze.
“I just hope it shows promise, shows capability and shows that when you put trust in one another and you put the hard work in that things do happen,” said Paul Juda, a member of both drought-busting teams.
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