Earlier than taking residence a bronze medal on the 2024 Paris Olympics, Group USA gymnast Fred Richard made a significant fake pas which may persist with him for the remainder of his life.
In an unique interview, Richard — who spoke to Us Weekly by way of his partnership with CELSIUS — defined the place issues went flawed.
“My girlfriend, she goes to the College of Michigan, she flew as much as see me in Paris for the workforce closing,” Richard, 20, stated. “However I forgot to get her tickets as a result of I used to be busy.”
“She assumed she had tickets,” Richard continued. “She flew up, landed there after which the evening earlier than she texted me like, ‘I don’t need to trouble you an excessive amount of, I do know you’re locking in. However don’t overlook to ship me the tickets.’”
Making issues worse, his girlfriend made the large journey to Paris along with her father. Richard joked, “Yeah, I tousled large time on that one.”
Richard, who has saved his relationship non-public, can also be a scholar on the College of Michigan and he sensed a disaster a lot bigger than bombing an examination. With simply hours to spare, Richard texted his agent, “Please repair this.”
Richard didn’t know whether or not his plea labored, as a result of he needed to go off the grid. “I locked in for competitors,” he stated. “I used to be simply hoping she’d present up. I turned off my cellphone. I used to be like, let’s simply hope the universe makes this work.”
Fortunately, Richard’s agent got here via within the clutch and attached his girlfriend and her dad with “some good seats” to see him and the boys’s gymnastics workforce win bronze within the workforce closing. The third-place end was Group USA’s first workforce all-around medal since 2008.
Regardless of all the things figuring out in the long run, Richard is aware of it’s going to take a really very long time for him to stay it down.
“Oh, I’ve already been listening to about it,” he stated with fun.
Often known as “FrederickFlips” on TikTok, Richard repeatedly collaborates with different athletes on movies the place he exhibits off his spectacular gymnastics abilities to his practically 1 million followers on the platform.
“Plenty of cool issues are occurring this 12 months,” he hinted. “As soon as I get again to Michigan and into the circulation of issues, I undoubtedly need to pursue content material with different athletes from the varsity as a result of I’m at all times hanging out with them. I’m wanting ahead to creating that content material occur.”
His deal with the long run and a push for extra thrilling content material makes his partnership with energy drink brand CELSIUS come in useful.
“The CELSIUS workforce has been very supportive of my Olympic journey and my journey in creating content material and dealing with a number of high athletes,” Richard stated. “I need to stick with them for some time as a result of they’re very useful in serving to athletes attain the highest degree as a substitute of simply, , fueling me.”