The U.S. men’s gymnastics team selection procedures that led to Olympic bronze

The team finals at the 2024 Paris Olympics are done and dusted, with the U.S. men’s gymnastics team winning bronze behind Japan and China and ending a 16-year medal drought in the process.

While the road to this triumph wasn’t simple, it all came down to the five-man roster that persevered and pulled through when it counted. Selecting that roster was another situation entirely.

USA Gymnastics has a selection committee that chooses the Olympic team, including the main squad, traveling alternates, and non-traveling alternates. Comprised of athlete and coaching representatives, as well as USAG directors, the system was designed to have qualified individuals craft the most successful team.

While well-meaning enough, the idea of having a panel of humans subjectively select a team has always been a source of contention, even though gymnastics is inherently subjective. By the recommendation of its national team members, USAG developed an algorithm that incorporated results from the 2024 U.S. Championships and Olympic Trials to mathematically determine the highest-scoring team for Paris. If that team was the same in two different scenarios (top three average over four days and all four days), then that five-man team would automatically be selected as the Olympic team. Otherwise, the team would be decided by discretionary selection.

This quad, the focus has been on getting the U.S. back on the team podium, so a strong base of all-arounders was needed. Additionally, the Paris Games returned to five-person teams (versus four in Tokyo). One additional gymnast makes a big difference as far as flexibility when it comes to the composition of the team, opening the door for specialists.

Depending on how things unfolded in Paris, the verdict on this selection procedure could go either way, but on the other side of the men’s team final, with a bronze medal in hand, the formula seemed to have worked.

Frederick Richard and Brody Malone, leading all-arounders with proven results, both domestically and abroad, were obvious picks. While it was a close battle for the next two spots, Asher Hong and Paul Juda have proven themselves on the NCAA and elite stages, with Juda going on to become the MVP for the team in Paris.

As for the fifth spot, much of the debate was centered around specialists Stephen Nedoroscik and Curran Phillips. Both have the ability to hit clean 15+ sets on their respective specialties of pommel horse and parallel bars, putting them in medal contention, but across championships and trials, pommel horse was more of a challenge for the all-arounders as compared to parallel bars. This made Nedoroscik’s score all the more valuable even though he wasn’t competing his highest difficulty routine.

But if you think these teams were the best by a landslide, you may be surprised to know that the second best team considering top three scores had Tokyo Olympian Yul Moldauer in place of Hong. That team score was only 0.05 lower. When considering all four scores, the second best team had Tokyo Olympian Shane Wiskus instead of Juda and scored only 0.075 lower.

Overall, the top seven scenarios using top three average were separated by 0.249. The top seven scenarios using all four scores were separated by 0.239. This team was that close to looking radically different. Moldauer, Wiskus, Donnell Whittenburg, Khoi Young, Patrick Hoopes, Curran Phillips, and Alex Diab were all in the mix.

When you try something new and are immediately successful, it’s hard to deviate from that method. While the team was undoubtedly successful in its endeavors in Paris, its next goal is gold at LA – the athletes and coaches have made that abundantly clear. What’s unclear is whether the same selection procedures will be used. Will the procedures go unchanged? Somewhat modified, considering how close the other scenarios were? An even more complicated combination of math and discretionary selection?

In a sport that is inherently subjective, an objective selection process helped the U.S. men return to the Olympic podium for the first time in 16 years. Was it just happenstance? Or can it help them win gold in 2028?