gymnastics

“To be young, gifted and Black,” words from Nina Simone’s legendary song, are fitting to describe Fred Richard, a gymnast on the U.S. national team. Richard, raised in Stoughton, Massachusetts, became at 19 the youngest male in American history to win a bronze medal in gymnastics Oct. 5 at the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium.

It isn’t often that the old expression “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” — coined in the ABC television show “Wide World of Sports” — plays out so clearly and poignantly in the minds of American sports fans as it did last weekend.