Alex Noel has earned countless trophies and medals over a 13 year career as a private club gymnast. (Courtesy photo)

NASHUA – For Alex Noel, gymnastics was just supposed to be something when he was the age of 5 his parents enrolled him in just to get him out of the house.

It worked.

Oh, he’s out of the house, all right, and soon will be out of the region, all the way to Oklahoma.

Noel, a Nashua High School North senior, is one of the top gymnasts in the region on the club circuit – there is no high school team – and next year will be taking his talents to the University of Oklahoma to compete for the Sooners men gymnastics team.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Oklahoma since I was 12,” Noel said. “My old coach went there, and Oklahoma was winning nationals every year. I always wanted to be on the best team, obviously.”

And right now, he’s one of the region’s best gymnasts, but it’s in relative sports anonymity since at the high school level there’s no boys gymnastics and the club level – which is normally a higher level than high school – basically doesn’t get much media attention. He’ll be competing in the USA Gymnastics Development Program Nationals in Salt Lake City, Utah in a couple of weeks, hoping to finish in the top eight All-Around in the men’s 18-19 age group so he can compete for a national title in August.

Noel got attention when, in the rec classes at Gymnastics Village in Amherst, the instructor felt he was talented enough to compete on club’s boys team.

“I remember my Mom told me I was going to have a new coach and I was freaking out,” Noel said. “I was originally not excited but I moved up pretty quickly, (there were various levels), I made new friends and liked the coach a lot. As I got a little bit older I got into the levels, was a level 4. I remember I made progress crazy quick. I’d be surprised by it and my coach would be surprised by it.”

So what does a 5 or 6-year-old like about gymnastics?

“It was fun, like flipping your body in the air,” Noel said. “I was kind of a showoff when I was younger, I’d show my friends, a back flip was kind of cool.

I felt that is was something I wanted to do and I wanted to do something I was good at.”

And he’s been doing it for 13 years.

Eventually, Noel got more and more serious, likely about when he was 8. That’s when he competed in his first New Hampshire state competition, in an attempt to qualify for regionals. Noel had family visiting remembers staying up too late the night before, and it may have cost him.

“I did awful at it,” Noel said. “I fell on every event. I remember I was so confident going in, so excited to be announced my name for regionals, and they never announced me. It really just broke my heart back then. I learned my lesson back then.”

But despite the disappointment, Noel realized he liked the atmosphere so much he couldn’t wait for another shot. “I loved it,” he said. “I like performing in front of crowds, doing all these cool things and have people watching it. I still love it.”

When he was younger, from 12 to about 17, Noel says he’s struggled with the mental aspect of the sport.

“You say you’re going to do something, and your body stops,” Noel said. “I was never going to quite gymnastics, but I seriously stopped thinking that I would go to a Division I school and compete for my dream school and everything. Which was hard.

“The physical talent is always there. I realized once I got through the mental stuff, I would really like shoot up. … I was always in my own head and in my own way. Being 12 years old with the expectations high. This Olympic expectation. Everyone goes, ‘Oh, you’re going to go to the Olympics when you’re older, you’re good.”

Noel said that was always good to hear, but made making the Olympics “an expectation.”

So he felt he was doing gymnastics to meet others’ expectations, rather than his own. “I was stressed, not having fun with the sport,” he said.

At the same time, Noel changed gyms and now competes out of Impact Gymnastics in Bow in August of 2020. And a new coach Craig Thibaudeau helped make a difference.

“He always has my best interests in mind,” Noel said. “He’s helped me through the mental aspect of the sport, trusting that I have these skills and that I’ll be fine. It sounds easier just saying this, but it took us years and years to get through this. I’m still not even perfect with it now; I’ll have times when I’ll have my mental blocks or get scared of something. But it’s gotten so much better, I’ve gained so much confidence over the last five years.”

“What I admire most about him is just his resolve, the will to just keep going,” Thibaudeau said. “We’ve had a lot of mental hurdles to overcome. Probably more than I’ve seen quite frankly in such a high level gymnast.

“He’s as physically talented as you can find. So working through those mental hurdles has been fun for me. Not always fun for him, but rewarding.”

Patience, Thibaudeau said, are the key, as athletes who have elite levels in their sights “don’t want to be patient because they know they can do it. The hardest thing with (Noel) is to slow it down.”

The other thing is Noel had to be patient with joint injuries because, as Thibaudeau said, “Our sport beats you up.” He missed a combined 11 weeks the last two years with various injuries, and patience was the key. “He came back stronger both seasons,” his coach said.

Right around that same time of starting to work with Thibaudeau, Noel had to deal with COVID, and couldn’t train from March of 2020 to that June. He had zoom meeting sessions with his coach, tried to stay in shape, but without the equipment, there wasn’t much he could do.

“You go back and you’re going to be weaker, and you have to build everything back up again,” Noel said. “It was hard but it was doable for sure.”

But at his new gym, he found athletes who could push him and that helped.

Noel hasn’t given much thought to whether he would’ve liked to have competed at the high school level. It’s a different sport than the girls – the events are different – and everything worked out for him competing for the two gyms/clubs he was with.

The two common events with women’s gymnastics is the floor exercise and vault. There’s the pommel horse, the rings, and the parallel bars are set up differently, and the other event is the horizonal bar.

In 2022, Noel won a national title on parallel bars in Arizona. That’s his best event from when he was younger to now. High bar is his most naturally talented event, because, as Thibaudeau says, “he has an incredible air sense. That’s an event college teams look for because it’s easy to fall because you’re flipping and letting go of the ball.”

He also feels right now he’s performing his best on pommel horse. “He’s consistent,” Thibaudeau said, “and it’s hard to be consistent on pommel horse.” High bar, pommel horse and parallel bars are where Thibaudeau feels he’ll contribute the best at OU.

Rings can be physically grueling with the pressure on the shoulders. His body is the strongest on the horizontal bar.

Remember, this is a long string of success. Noel began winning states the year after his rough experience, when he was 8 or 9. He’s won as many as nine or 10 state titles. The biggest victory in his mind was this season when he competed at Elite Team Cup in February in Louisville, Ky., representing Region 6 that included New England, New York, New Jersey, etc. This was a meet that is the best of the best.

“You compete for your team, but you also compete individually,” Noel said.

And he finished second All-Around.

“That was huge,” he said. “That’s pretty much all the best guys in the nation. That was definitely an emotional moment for me. The previous year when I went there I really struggled, had a pretty bad meet. There was some redemption there. … It was awesome. I actually felt I performed to my ability, didn’t under perform.”

Noel committed to OU back in September after an official visit. They took recruits to an OU football game, got to go on the field, watch a gymnastics practice.

“The (football) players are huge,” Noel said.

How does his coach feel he will fit in at the collegiate level?

“He’ll certainly fit into it physically,” Thibaudeau said. “If we keep doing the work and get him prepared mentally I think he’ll be an exceptional addition to their team. We work very close together but in college that’s not how it is; you’re more independent. So our goal for the rest of our time working together is to continue his indepence, prepare him to step onto campus day one and get him ready to contribute.”

The other factor that will help Noel is he won’t have to carry a team. “He won’t be the big fish in the sea,” Thibaudeau said.

Noel would like to study business there and after his gymnastics career is over, whether it’s in college or a few years after, perhaps own his own gymnastics school.

There’s a sense of closeness among the gymnasts, even between competitors.

“Some of the best guys in the nation, we’re all pretty close,” he said. “I feel like everyone’s a family, we’re all trying to grow the sport. We’re all doing our best to win every meet. Gymnastics is a good sportsmanship sport. You’re never getting in anyone’s face in gymnastics.”

“He’s a great teammate,” his coach said. “He can connect with anybody.”

And in the competition, Noel “just focus on myself and what I need to do when competing, and try not to focus on other people’s scores, and try to get my job done.”

Would Noel indeed like to keep the Olympics as his future goal?

“Honestly, going D1, making it to Oklahoma is already a dream come true from when I was younger,” he said. “And obviously my main dream is to go to the Olympics, that would be awesome.”

But that’s waaay down the road. His immediate sights are set on the nationals, and then taking the next step in trying to help Oklahoma win an NCAA title during the four years he’s there and medaling as an individual in the NCAAs.

“I have some milestone goals for myself,” Noel said. “The next couple of years. If I can make the Olympic Trials in 2028, and after college go back to my home gym and train for another four years and try to qualify for 2032 (Olympics). It’s just hard to say, I’ve got to get my body to hold up. There’s just so many different aspects.”

Alex Noel has earned countless trophies and medals over a 13 year career as a private club gymnast. (Courtesy photo)

Meanwhile, the trophy case at home is packed with all the medals, etc. he’s accumulated the last 13 years.

Meanwhile, Noel can’t thank his parents Paula Fraulini and Richard Noel enough for helping him get these opportunities without putting any pressure on him.

“My parents have been so supportive,” he said. “They were never wanted to push me or get too involved – they trusted me and my coach. They’re always there to support everything I did. Whether I do good or do bad, my parents are always there so support me.

The one thing that Noel sacrifices is his social life or what kids his age normally do, thanks to 21 hours a week practice time during the school year and 30-plus during the summer. “It’s a little easier now but when I was young it was hard missing out on things because I had to go to practice,” he said. “My friends would talk about going places and I’m like, ‘Oh, I can’t, I’ve got to go to practice.’

“I look at my life and what’s most important. Gymnastics and school will always be at the top of that. And (if) I have time to hang out with my friends and family, obviously I’d love to do that, but I have to look at what’s most important in my life and what’s going to get me the furthest.”

And any sacrifice he admits, “is all worth it.”

Plus, it gets him out of the house, right?