Deerfield gymnast Paul Juda’s reaction when he learned he made the U.S. Gymnastics team for the 2024 Paris Olympics showed just how much that moment truly means for many athletes.
The suburban Chicago native, who secured his ticket to Paris after falling just shy of the 2020 Tokyo Games, didn’t even hear his full name called at the Olympic trials over the weekend before bursting into tears.
“I was the first name called, and the second I heard ‘Pa—,’ I started crying right away,” Juda said.
The quiet and unassuming Juda broke down in tears multiple times in the aftermath.
“I only had one goal, and it was to hit all my routines and leave here healthy,” Juda told NBC at the trials. “So, I’m happy to do that and more. Go, Team USA!”
Juda had nearly written off his goal of becoming an Olympic athlete — until now.
“I’m really glad that I wrote on my whiteboard ‘Become an Olympian,'” Juda said, visibly emotional. “I had fell short on a couple other goals that I wrote on that whiteboard and I was starting to think if I should erase the one that said Olympian because I guess maybe it won’t come true. But I’m going home and I’m putting a massive check mark on there, and I’m glad that it went there, that I kept it there.”
Juda will join his now-Olympic teammates Fred Richard, Brody Malone, Asher Hong and Stephen Nedoroscik.
Nine months after earning a bronze at the 2023 world championships — the men’s program’s first at a major international competition in nearly a decade — Juda and the rest of the Americans believe they’re capable of even more this summer.
“The more I look forward to the Olympics, the more I realize it’s awesome to become an Olympian, but there’s a whole other upper echelon of athletes that leave being a medalist,” he told NBC Chicago prior to the trials.
Juda and Hong, members of last year’s world championship team, will join Malone and Richard as the core of what will be a relatively young American team. Nedoroscik is 25. Malone is 24. Juda turns 23 on July 7. Richard and Hong are all of 20.