The dream is worth the climb
But for Farragut High School graduate Ty Roderiques, that dream became reality before he turned 18 — and he has the gold medals to show for it.
Competing out of GymTek Academy, Roderiques became a two-time member of the U.S. Men’s Junior National Gymnastics Team. He won the 2023 U.S. vault championship and finished second on vault, fourth on pommel and third in the all-around at the 2024 U.S. Championships and recently competed at the 2025 London Open, placing first in the all-around.
Now a rising sophomore on the Nebraska gymnastics team, Roderiques revisited his rise in the sport, noting what it has meant to represent his country.
“It’s a dream come true,” he said. “You hear all these stories of people who did it and look back at the memories and hours you put in. It makes the hill you climbed look so small, just such a sense of everything you worked for paying off.”
He started climbing that hill at 4 years old, jumping on the trampolines at Tataru’s Gymnastics in Farragut during his sister’s practices.
But once Roderiques started competing, he kept winning.
“I thought it was normal, like honestly,” he said with a chuckle. “I was a little numb to how good my teammates and I were.”
“Honestly, my love for the sport has grown and changed every single year I’ve been doing this,” Roderiques added. “When I was a kid, it wasn’t too much of an important thing for me. But the older I became, the more I realized, ‘This is what I was put on this Earth to do. This is what I feel like I was destined to become.’”
That appreciation extended to Farragut High School. Most athletes walked around wearing football jerseys or talking about the points they scored in basketball, but Roderiques unleashed his gift once he stepped on the mat.
“It made me feel a sense of joy in my own craft — that every time I’d do something cool, I felt celebrated,” he said. “It was cool to be unique.”
At 5-foot-4 with an athletic build, Roderiques has performed all four events: vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise.
Roderiques admitted he likes vault best, using a combination of speed, strength and awareness to launch himself into the air.
“I’ve always been good at it, and it’s something a lot of people don’t understand really well,” he said. “But I feel like I’ve gotten a good grasp of it. All the events are different, and with certain body types, you tend to be better at other ones. Part of the challenge is getting better at the ones you’re not the best at.”
Standing inside the SAP Center in San Jose, California, he celebrated the culminaton of that craft at age 16 when he was named the national champion in vault with a third-place finish in all-around to qualify for the U.S. Men’s Junior National Team.
He clapped and smiled afterward, sending chalk into the air.
Years later, he took a deeper look at his mental approach that day.
“It’s hard,” Roderiques said. “When you’re about to compete, you tend to get anxious and scared. But you have to remember you’re here for a reason, and it’s better to be uncomfortable in that situation than to not be competing at all.”
As a member of the national team, Roderiques traveled to Canada — where he helped win a team title — and London, where he won the all-around competition for the United States.
In the end, he earned three gold medals he brought home to Farragut.
“I was really giddy,” he reflected. “I didn’t put a lot of pressure on myself for that competition, just let myself have fun. It felt really good.”
In college, Roderiques has earned the College Gymnastics Association’s Rookie of the Week and Big Ten Freshman of the Week while setting multiple career-highs.
Now, he has another goal in mind for 2028: the Olympics. But as he works toward that, Roderiques holds plenty of appreciation for his journey so far, too.
“It meant a lot to represent the country you’re from,” he said. “It meant a lot to know I was the one they had chosen. But it was also a lot of pressure because you have to do well for your country. It was more excitement than fear, honestly. You have to remind yourself pressure is a
privilege, and you’re not there on an accident. You earned it, and the competition is your place to show it. It didn’t matter if it went good or bad because the success was already completed.”
