Simone Biles and world-renowned gymnasts to visit Phoenix in September on a nationwide tour

PHOENIX (AZFamily)—They’re what almost everyone in America is talking about right now, and the U.S. gymnastics team wants to keep it that way.

Fellow gymnasts Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, Paul Juda, Peng-Peng Lee, Brody Malone, Katelyn Ohashi, Stephen Nedoroscik, Fred Richard, Joscelyn Roberson, Mélanie Johanna De Jesus Dos Santos, and Casimir Schmidt will join Simon Biles on the tour.

The champion group of gymnasts will be in Phoenix on September 18th at the Footprint Center for the “Gold Over America Tour.” The event is described as an exhilarating display of jaw-dropping athleticism and high-energy choreography with inspirational messages of hope, strength, resilience, and determination.

The Race To Save Men’s Gymnastics

For the men’s team, it’s also about saving their sport, currently on life support, for future generations.

With many colleges, universities, and even high schools looking to cut their athletic programs, the gymnasts, especially the men’s team, are in a dire race to save their sport from the chopping block.

Before they stood with their arms wrapped around each other in a brotherhood forever etched into U.S. Olympic lore, Brody Malone, Frederick Richard, Asher Hong, Paul Juda, and Stephen Nedoroscik were collegians.

The bronze medal the Americans so emphatically earned ended a 16-year drought on the sport’s biggest stage.

Yet it was also a message to athletic directors at the dozen schools that still have Division I gymnastics — and, honestly, to the ones that don’t, too — that the sport is worth saving.

“If you want to keep seeing USA Gymnastics and Team USA on a gymnastics podium, at least on the men’s side, you’re going to have to give us more opportunities to compete in college,” said Paul Juda, who is in graduate school at Michigan.

Opportunities that are in danger of vanishing quickly thanks to a rapidly evolving college sports landscape. It’s a reality the five men who stood on the podium with their arms around each other are only too aware of.

The Athletic describes it as “death-by-a-thousand-paper cuts,” saying that relentless and ongoing cuts by athletic departments at most colleges and universities have pushed men’s gymnastics programs to “near extinction.”

Only 12 Division 1 universities now sponsor men’s teams, with no sponsorship at the Division 2 level, and only three Division 3 schools provided any sponsorship, The Athletic reported.

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