(NEW YORK) — Nearly one week into the 2024 Olympics in Paris, Team USA has a breakout star.
Stephen Nedoroscik, a 25-year-old pommel horse “specialist” on the U.S. men’s gymnastics team, was crucial in helping his team bring home a bronze medal in Paris, the men’s team’s first Olympic medal in 16 years.
In the final rotation of the team competition on July 29, Nedoroscik scored high enough, 14.866, in his only rotation for the team event to put the U.S. men in third place in the final standings.
“I just stayed in the moment for the whole routine, hearing [my teammates] just cheer me on the whole time,” Nedoroscik told ABC News Tuesday of his medal-winning routine. “By the time I got to the dismount, I thought to myself …, ‘If I put this dismount up and stick the landing, we get a team medal.’ So, literally, as I’m in the air, falling to my feet, you can see the smile already coming to my face, and, man, was that a moment I’ll never forget.”
Here are four things to know about Nedoroscik:
1. He has become known as ‘Mr. Pommel Horse’
Nedoroscik’s skill on the pommel horse, a difficult event that requires extraordinary strength and coordination, has earned him nicknames including “Mr. Pommel Horse,” and “pommel horse guy.”
After completing his 40-second pommel horse routine twice in the team competition, Nedoroscik will perform it again on Saturday, where he’ll have a chance to win an individual gold medal in the pommel horse final.
Nedoroscik told the Washington Post he knew there would be criticism of him only competing in pommel horse, and not the other five apparatuses, and he was prepared.
“I was completely aware of it,” Nedoroscik said. “I really wanted to make the Olympic team, and I knew that there was going to be backlash to it. I do one event compared to these guys that are phenomenal all-arounders. And I am a phenomenal horse guy. But it’s hard to fit on a five-guy team.”
According to his USA Gymnastics biography, Nedoroscik, the current U.S. pommel horse champion, is tied for the most U.S. pommel horse titles in history, at four.
He is also a past world pommel horse champion.
2. He competes with limited vision
Nedoroscik has also gained the nickname “Clark Kent” for the way he takes his glasses off when he competes, a la Superman.
The 25-year-old has shared on TiKTok that he has an eye condition called strabismus, or crossed eyes, which is a misalignment of the eyes that can lead to vision problems, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
He has also said previously that he has coloboma, an eye condition that people are born with in which a part of the tissue that composes the eye is missing, according to the National Eye Institute.
While Nedoroscik used to wear prescription goggles when he competed, he now competes without goggles or glasses.
“I don’t think I actually use my eyes on pommel horse,” he told the Washington Post. “It’s all feeling. I see with my hands.”
3. He is a Rubik’s Cube pro
The pommel horse is not Nedoroscik’s only talent.
Nedoroscik is also a pro at completing the Rubik’s Cube.
Just before competing in the team all-around competition, Nedoroscik posted on social media that he finished a Rubik’s Cube in just over nine seconds.
After the competition, Nedoroscik showed his skill was not a fluke, completing a Rubik’s Cube again in record speed for ABC News’ Good Morning America.
“Where I go the cube go,” he commented beneath a video of the moment on Instagram.
4. Nedoroscik and his girlfriend were both gymnasts at Penn State
Nedoroscik, who originally hails from Massachusetts, graduated from Penn State University in 2020.
He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, according to his USA Gymnastics bio.
Nedoroscik’s girlfriend, Tess McCracken, was also a gymnast at Penn State, according to her Instagram account.
The couple now live in Florida.
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