When the Michigan men’s gymnastics team’s hype video plays on the screen before every meet, there’s a shot of a gymnast’s back with the name “Puri” emblazoned on the leotard.
For the crowd, it’s just an athlete’s back with their name on it. But for the Puri family, it’s a little more special. Because no one knows who it is in the video — junior Rithik Puri or freshman Akshay Puri. Not even the brothers.
“I actually don’t know which one of us is wearing it,” Rithik told The Michigan Daily. “Which is really cool because it’s almost an homage to the way that our family has been able to contribute to (Michigan).”
No matter who it is, the moment is special enough.
The Puri brothers have contributed to the Wolverines’ success on the rings, where the two brothers duel every week for a spot in the lineup. Their family contributions, though, go beyond that.
Because there aren’t just two Puri brothers. There are four.
Shaunak Puri, the oldest, trained at Michigan for two years before becoming program assistant and eventually heading to law school at Columbia. Rithik, who currently competes for the Wolverines, was widely recruited and is a perennial contender for the USA National Team.
And then there’s the twins, Akshay and Kavan Puri. Akshay is a rising star on the rings for Michigan while Kavan’s recruitment was derailed due to a wrist injury. That didn’t take him away from the sport, though, as he now works out with the club team while serving as a volunteer team manager and practice judge for the NCAA team.
Gymnastics has been a tie that binds the four Puri brothers together since Shaunak was just five years old. Jumpstarting the Puri gymnastics legacy, he was spotted by a coach during his tumbling class. He earned a spot on the competitive team at the gym, and his brothers soon followed in his footsteps, as younger siblings often do.
Gymnastics became a family affair. The brothers spent an hour and a half in the car every day driving to and from practice, and countless hours traveling every weekend to meets. They pushed each other and never failed to critique the other’s work.
“I’ve never felt with my brothers that they’re going to be the ones to hold my hand and tell me it’s something else,” Akshay told The Daily. “… The fact that they call me out on my own personal flaws that I can then work on and pull myself onto the horse — that’s something that I think (is) very unique that a brother can do.”
And though they fight like brothers, only they’re allowed to do it.
“It’s also ‘Godfather’-style, right?” Shaunak laughed. “We’ll keep that within the family. When we’re in public, when we’re outside, we’ve got each other’s back, but back behind closed doors, on those FaceTime calls, it’ll be like, ‘Nah, Akshay, you gotta fix that. That’s on you.’ ”
Despite all that time together, the brothers are still deeply individual people. In a sport like gymnastics which relies on individual performance, that individuality has room to shine. It also means that the brothers avoided any truly fraught competition between siblings as each of them shone in their own areas.
“What’s very interesting about gymnastics is that it is super individual, but that also means that each person can engage with the sport in their own way,” Rithik explained. “… So growing up, I actually think there was a lot less competition between us, which was nice because … there was never any tension between us about who’s the best or who’s the strongest gymnast or whatever, because each of us had our spotlight event or … niche within the sport.”
And as they aged in the sport, they had to find where their paths would go next. Shaunak was not heavily recruited for gymnastics, and relied more on admissions to see where he would go. He fell in love with Michigan despite being raised an Ohio State fan and walked onto the team as a freshman. He ultimately trained with the Wolverines before being cut at the end of his sophomore year, and rejoined the program as a program assistant.
For Rithik, though, it wasn’t such an easy decision. He didn’t want to merely follow in his older brother’s footsteps. At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel like Michigan was where he was meant to be, especially as the pandemic limited his opportunities to tour schools.
“To be honest, the fact that (Shaunak) had gone here was my biggest negative for coming to Michigan,” Rithik said. “When I was younger, I felt very strongly about not just being a younger sibling and charting my own path, being very individual. … Ultimately, the gut feeling I had for this school when the time came to make a decision has served me well.”
Once Rithik came to Michigan, Akshay was able to follow. Less recruited than his twin brother, he nonetheless received an offer from Michigan due to his promise on rings. He eagerly accepted it due to his time growing up around the team and knowing how much his brothers loved it here. For him, the decision was effortless — the chance to compete with his brother was all he needed.
Kavan’s path, though, sharply diverged from his twin’s. He was more heavily recruited with offers from Air Force, Navy and Minnesota, and pushed himself to compete on a broken wrist his senior year to secure those recruitments. He ultimately had to have reconstructive wrist surgery, could not accept any offers and quit the sport he loved.
But tied to his brothers, Kavan decided that Michigan was the right choice for him whether or not he could compete in gymnastics or not. When he came to campus in the fall, he didn’t touch gymnastics for months.
“I think it was very difficult for Kavan initially, to feel that he had lost that part of his identity and to see people around him, including his brother, who were able to move forward,” the brothers’ mother, Dr. Anita Chandra-Puri, told The Daily. “And yet … I think he has come to a certain level of comfort with it to the point where now he’s back in the gym. He’s their biggest supporter in terms of traveling to meets. He’s always there.”
Kavan couldn’t stay away from a sport that has defined so much of his and his family’s life. While they all took individual paths to get here, all four of the brothers found their way to Michigan. Gymnastics has always bound the Puri brothers together, from Shaunak’s earliest days of tumbling class to Kavan joining the team in administrative capacities earlier this year. It’s a tie that continues to bind them despite their diverging paths.
“They’re absolutely unique kids,” the brothers’ former coach, Arkadiy Andryushchenko, told The Daily. “They’re all different … but I can say great things about each of them.”
And in that individuality, they’ve found different ways to engage with the sport. Shaunak and Kavan’s stories parallel each other because they both could not continue in a sport that has consumed so much of their lives. But they’ve both found ways to continue to engage with gymnastics because they couldn’t stay away from the sport or their brothers.
And even with the individualism of the sport, the name on the leotard is what means the most.
“Our uniforms and our (Big Ten Championship) rings all just say Puri,” Rithik said. “They don’t have an initial in front of it. …That’s a really cool aspect of our family culture — that we get to just put our family name on top and worry less about which one of us individually is the person doing that. I think there’s some selflessness to that, that each of us gets to feel and just share an added pride when someone — whether it’s myself or Akshay or (Shaunak) or Kavan. … Anytime any of us is succeeding, we’re all succeeding.”
Connected by Michigan and gymnastics, even the next steps in life won’t separate the Puri brothers. They are forever bound by maize and blue ties of brotherhood and gymnastics.