How Team USA’s Fred Richard Got Gum All Over His Bronze Medal in Paris

Team USA gymnast Fred Richard found himself in quite a sticky situation after taking home a medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

Shortly after Richard, 20, and the American squad won bronze in the men’s all-around team final — Team USA’s first team all-around medal since 2008 — carrying around his new hardware became a bit cumbersome. 

“I guess people assume you can take care of it perfectly, but then they forget,  you use the medal for certain things, for certain events and stuff,” Richard exclusively told Us Weekly at the Gold Over America Tour at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. “So it’s hard keeping track of it perfectly wherever you go. I brought the medal on a tour around France after the Olympics, and I had it in my pocket because I didn’t want to wear it. It gets heavy, so I didn’t want to wear it the whole time.”

This is where Richard — who is on tour with fellow Olympic medalists including Simone Biles, Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles and Brody Malone — made his fateful error. 

“So I put it in my pocket, but I forgot that I put gum in a wrapper in my pocket earlier that day and the gum basically escaped the wrapper enough to get some gum all over the medal,” Richard recalled. “I had to clean it off, but I felt so bad looking at my Olympic medal with gum on it. I was like, ‘Dang, I suck,’ is basically what I told myself.”

Richard eventually returned his medal to its original shiny shape, saying, “I took good care of it after that.”

Despite its cleanliness, however, Richard’s medal hasn’t exactly been in safe keeping since returning home from Paris. 

“So the medal is supposed to be at my home on a nice, good shelf, right?” he explained, “Well, we’re on tour and I assumed there might be some spots where I need it, depending on things we do. So currently, the Olympic medal is sitting in a backpack.”

Richard joked, “At least it’s in a backpack, not on the floor.”

In addition to being on tour, Richard is also a junior at the University of Michigan. Admittedly, it’s been a lot to balance.

“It’s crazy,” Richard told Us. “It’s tour, it’s college, it’s business things, it’s training and still trying to get better at your sport because we still have world championships every year to get ready for. It’s just a lot. I can’t even say I’m doing good at it. I’m just trying my best and we’re making it work.”

The Gold Over America tour continues to canvass the United States through the beginning of November.

With reporting by Carly Konsker