The gymnast who wouldn’t stop flipping, or winning

In the span of 48 hours, Frederick Richard collected the sport’s highest individual honor and then defended his national title. For Michigan’s all-time great, the encore was the whole point.

On Thursday evening in Champaign, Illinois, Frederick Richard stood at a banquet podium and accepted the Nissen-Emery Award, men’s collegiate gymnastics’ version of the Heisman Trophy, handed to the year’s outstanding senior male gymnast. Forty-eight hours later, he walked into the State Farm Center arena and, with a final score of 83.598, won his second straight and third career NCAA All-Around individual title. It was the kind of weekend that closes careers. It was also, for Richard, a perfectly ordinary capstone to an extraordinary four years.

The University of Michigan senior, born in Boston to Haitian and Dominican parents and raised in Stoughton, Massachusetts, has spent his collegiate career resetting the bar for what’s possible in the sport. He finishes as the most decorated gymnast in Michigan program history and, by most measures, one of the most accomplished in NCAA history.

Richard arrived at Michigan in 2022 already a junior national champion and international medalist. What few anticipated was how quickly he’d shatter the ceiling of what college gymnastics could look like. His freshman year alone produced three NCAA event titles and his first All-Around championship. By the time he was a sophomore, he had become an Olympic bronze medalist.

The Nissen-Emery Award, presented annually by the College Gymnastics Association, recognizes the senior male gymnast who best combines athletic achievement with sportsmanship and character. It is not just a trophy for points scored. It is a recognition of what a person represents to the sport.

Richard is only the fourth Michigan man to receive it, alongside Paul Juda (2023), Sam Mikulak (2014), and Justin Toman (2002). He beat out a field that included Stanford’s Asher Hong, himself an Olympic bronze medalist and three-time Big Ten Gymnast of the Year, as well as finalists from Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Richard has been as important off the competition floor as on it. His social media presence, operating under the handle FrederickFlips, has introduced men’s gymnastics to audiences far beyond the sport’s traditional base. His content ranges from training footage to behind-the-scenes glimpses of life as a student-athlete, and has made him one of the most recognized faces in collegiate sports.

The May 2025 Guinness record attempt crystallized everything that makes Richard a different kind of athlete. He livestreamed 24 continuous hours of standing backflips, completing 1,111 in total, while raising money for gymnastics equipment to be donated to programs in Africa. The GoFundMe surpassed $50,000 in the days after. It was simultaneously a physical feat, a media spectacle, and an act of genuine generosity.

Richard’s collegiate career is now complete. He departs Michigan having won three national titles, four Big Ten crowns, 14 All-America honors, the Nissen-Emery Award, an Olympic bronze, and a world medal. The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics sit two years away, a target that loomed over his final season without ever seeming to distract from it.

Stanford recaptured the team title in Champaign, edging Oklahoma for the top spot while Michigan finished third ahead of Nebraska. But the night’s defining story was the individual. Richard competed in his final collegiate meet with the composure of someone who had been here before, because he had. Three times, in fact.