Can men’s gymnastics be saved?

Nothing prepares a casual Olympics fan for falling in love with a sport they know nothing about. During the gymnastics trials in Milwaukee this year, I waited to watch Simone Biles, Suni Lee, and the rest of the ladies dazzle with their awesome skills. Could we get the men’s competition over with already?   Yet there […]

Nothing prepares a casual Olympics fan for falling in love with a sport they know nothing about.

During the gymnastics trials in Milwaukee this year, I waited to watch Simone Biles, Suni Lee, and the rest of the ladies dazzle with their awesome skills. Could we get the men’s competition over with already?  

Yet there I was, transfixed as the men’s team went through their routines. Yes, the men showed massive feats of strength and ability, but they also had a certain … rizz? 

I wasn’t alone in watching men’s gymnastics for the first time. The US men’s team’s bronze win in the Paris 2024 Olympics left many awestruck at athletes they underestimated or didn’t know much about. 

The American women gymnasts have outperformed the men in the Olympics for decades. But this week’s win brought a new amount of attention to US men’s artistic gymnastics, ending a 16-year run of watching other countries beat them to the podium.

Perhaps no one personified this turnaround better than “Pommel Horse Guy” — Stephen Nedoroscik, whose only event was pommel horse, and was constantly featured on camera in a state of meditation, eyes closed in Clark Kent style glasses, all while his teammates (Brody Malone, Frederick Richard, Asher Hong, and Paul Juda) were hitting it big in their routines.  

They did their jobs, but to clinch a medal, Nedoroscik had to do his. The glasses came off, Nedoroscik perfectly pommeled, and the internet went wild. 

Beijing 2008 was the last time the US men’s team won a medal, taking home America’s first bronze in the team event. “We believe that absolutely stimulated an interest in men’s gymnastics,” Justin Spring, who was part of that winning group, told Today, Explained. “It’s got to be cool.”

But that momentum wouldn’t last. After retiring from competition, Spring went on to become head coach for men’s gymnastics at the University of Illinois. Throughout his tenure, he saw a troubling trend of colleges across the US cutting men’s gymnastics programs. 

Back in the 1970s, more than 150 universities had men’s gymnastics programs. Today there are only 12 Division I teams. 

One of the culprits that some observers have pointed to is the need to comply with Title IX programs and balancing budgets. (Title IX forbids discrimination based on sex in schools that receive federal funds.) According to this view, in order to achieve equity between men’s and women’s athletics, schools tended to cut men’s sports like swimming, diving, track and field, and gymnastics.

“There are so few opportunities outside of the Olympics and NCAA scholarships that it’s hard to keep kids in the sport,” said Lauren Hopkins, founder of the GymTernet blog, on Today, Explained. 

How is a sport to thrive — and win medals — if the pickings are slim?

Newly minted Paris 2024 bronze medalist Fred Richard has made it a big deal to bring all eyes back to the sport. “You know, we’re in a sport where there’s not as many viewers. You know, it’s a much smaller sport, especially on the men’s side,” Richard told Good Morning America before a segment recreating his popular TikTok @frederickflips of somersaulting into the air and landing into a pair of shorts. 

That video is part of a steady stream of content that’s helped him amass more than a million followers on the app — and, men’s gymnastics fans hope, will prod more boys to join the sport.

The men’s gymnastics pipeline, explained

In the 1940s and ’50s, high schools in every state had some kind of boys gymnastics programs. Today, that’s all but disappeared.

Spring says boys have to start training super young. “It’s discipline, focus, unbelievable strength, and technical precision from the age of 5. And I think that is why it’s not a sport for everyone.” 

It’s a reality that gymnasts — of any gender — usually start their Olympic journey while they’re still learning how to read. Fred Richard was competing at age 5. Asher Hong’s parents told the Houston Chronicle he was gunning for the Olympics at age 6. 

A majority of the 2024 men’s team were collegiate athletes, including all the guys from the 2024 Paris Olympics who either went to Stanford or Michigan.

“Almost every collegiate institution is a mini national training center,” said Spring. “You just cannot supplement, provide support for Olympic athletes better than a collegiate program does. You have nutritionists. You have sport’s psychologist, you have multiple coaches.”

To get to college, you have to be the best of the best for a dwindling amount of college recruiters. And for those who can’t afford college, you have to compete for a limited amount of scholarships.

“I think a lot of kids, once they hit 13, 14, 15, and they realize they’re not going to be at the same level as the guys that are getting the scholarships, in their minds, there’s probably no reason at this point,” said Hopkins of the GymTernet blog. “And putting in all that extra effort and hours and work, it’s easier for them to kind of drop down and do other sports that aren’t as demanding. A lot of them will go into diving or track and field, where there’s just more opportunities for college programs to take them in.”

Adding insult to injury, you can already be an athlete at a university, and your program can still be cut.

The decline of NCAA programs

Shane Wiskus, a member of the US’s 2020 Tokyo Olympic team, is also an alternate for this year’s Paris Olympics. He was a senior at the University of Minnesota, where his team placed second in the NCAA championships. 

Afterward, the men’s gymnastics program was cut.

“My first thought is the next generation and even the guys on my team that are behind me, I was thinking a lot about them,” Wiskus told Fox 9 Minneapolis. “And the missed opportunity that they won’t have that I had going through these programs.”

Title IX has been blamed for the decimation of men’s college gymnastics. On paper, universities had to make sure that the percentages of male and female athletes are about the same as the percentages of male and female students enrolled at the school.

Some schools have gotten creative to get in compliance with Title IX. And while there are options to create more women’s sports or cut some men’s, many colleges have chosen the latter, citing budget concerns. 

In a 60 Minutes interview, historian Victoria Jackson, who specializes in the history of college sports at ASU, said, “Every time there’s an economic downturn, you protect the core business, which is football. Which means that other sports are on the chopping block.”

Sports like football and basketball bring in hundreds of millions in revenue each year from ticket sales to television contracts. Men’s gymnastics just doesn’t have that pull. Since the onset of COVID-19, championship-winning men’s programs have been cut. 

Mike Burns, who was head men’s gymnastics coach for 17 years at the University of Minnesota, told Vox he’s not giving up.

“They pissed off the wrong 62-year-old from Boston who teaches cartwheels for a living,” Burns said, “that’s gonna be the thing they wish they hadn’t done, because there’s gonna be a fight.” 

Staying alive

Now that Minnesota men’s gymnastics is no longer part of the school’s athletic roster, Burns and other volunteers have spun off the 117-year-old program into a club sport supported by the school’s Office of Student Affairs.

In June 2024, they were officially kicked out of their beloved practice gym, Cooke Hall, a place they’ve practiced since the 1930s, to make space for diving.

They’ve had to get scrappy by creating the nonprofit Friends of Minnesota Gymnastics, whose board is staffed by former alumni. From donations and other fundraising efforts like hosting gymnastic meets, Burns said the association is able to raise about a tenth of what the University of Minnesota offered a year. Students who used to train at the university now have to drive about 45 minutes to train.

“My one desire is to keep this program alive,” said Burns. “And I’m going to do everything in my power to do so.”

When asked about this new class of Olympians in Paris, Burns mentions how Fred Richard “brings the confidence and cockiness that I just love every time I see that kid.”

He said that’s the sort of thing that can make men’s gymnastics contagious. But he admits the US has a long way to go if they’re going to reach silver and gold without the state-sponsored resources offered by powerhouses like China and Russia. 

The fact is: Olympic medals bring lots of attention, and attention is currency. The question is whether this year’s athletes can hold onto it.