Frederick Richard Wins First U.S. All-Around Gymnastics Title at Age 20

Frederick Richard has been building toward this moment for two decades. On Saturday in Phoenix, he finally got there.

Richard won the two-day Xfinity U.S. Gymnastics Championships to claim his first U.S. men's all-around title, finishing with 170.015 total points and pulling away from runner-up Shane Wiskus by 2.051. It was a comfortable margin in the end, but the road to get there was not without complications.

"I strived my whole life to get here, it took 20 years, four championships later as a senior, but we're here," Richard said on the NBC Sports broadcast. "It shows the hard work is paying off."

According to Yahoo Sports, Richard entered the final night holding a slim lead of just 153 thousandths of a point over 19-year-old Danila Leykin. That lead came despite Richard absorbing deductions on the first night, including six tenths of a point for wearing a non-conforming uniform, a choice he made intentionally, and for saluting in the wrong direction after his pommel horse routine. He gave up another three tenths Saturday for the uniform infraction. Both deductions were ones he knew were coming.

After hitting his pommel horse set cleanly on the second night, Richard smiled and said, "I saluted this time."

The all-around title adds to a resume that was already among the best in American men's gymnastics. Richard holds a World Championships all-around bronze medal from 2023, the first by an American man since 2010. He won the Olympic Trials all-around in 2024 and was part of the U.S. team that took bronze at the Paris Olympics that same year. He graduated from the University of Michigan this spring.

Wiskus, who had considered retiring after narrowly missing the Paris Olympic team, pushed through real pain to finish second. His shoulder flared up after his fourth of six routines Saturday, turning his parallel bars finale into what he called the most painful routine of his career. He had also missed the 2025 U.S. Championships following shoulder surgery. Despite all of that, Saturday marked his best-ever finish in a national all-around competition.

"This post-meet feeling, putting 12 routines together and competing the way that you trained, and having that moment after the routine to celebrate and have that sigh of relief, those are the feelings that I'm chasing," Wiskus said. "Those are the feelings that I know I'll never get anywhere else except for gymnastics."

Leykin, 19, had a chance to become the youngest U.S. men's all-around champion since Tim Ryan in 1989. He led after the first night but dropped to third on Saturday after two falls on floor exercise cost him two points. Still, the finish was a significant jump from his 10th-place result at nationals in 2025.

Both Wiskus and Leykin are headed to October's World Championships. For Wiskus, it will be his first global championship since the Tokyo Games. For Richard, it will be another step toward Los Angeles 2028, a goal he has reportedly been planning for using a Google Doc to track his progress.

Richard also has more than 900,000 followers each on TikTok and Instagram and more than 450,000 YouTube subscribers, making him one of the most visible figures in American gymnastics heading into the next Olympic cycle.