What to know about Stephen Nedoroscik, America’s pommel horse hero

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Move over, Clark Kent. America’s newest glasses-wearing (and glasses-shedding) superhero is Pommel Horse Guy.

Stephen Nedoroscik was not exactly a household name going into Monday’s men’s gymnastics all-around finals. As Team USA’s resident pommel horse specialist, he was there to compete in just one event, which happened to be scheduled for last.

But in the hours that the 25-year-old waited on the sidelines, he started to attract attention.

NBC put a countdown clock for “Nedoroscik Pommel” in the bottom corner of its video feed. Observers obsessed over the fact that he appeared to be sleeping at times, with his eyes fully closed.

Social media was flooded with comparisons, from Superman and Captain America to Steve Kornacki and Barbie’s Ken (who famously has one job). Curious fans discovered Nedoroscik’s Instagram, where he had posted just hours before about solving a Rubik’s cube in under 10 seconds.

“Good omen,” he’d written.

Nedoroscik became a hero overnight. But he arrived in Paris as a bit of a controversial figure.

U.S. men’s gymnastics, chasing its first Olympic team medal since 2008, decided to switch up its strategy this time around. Although all five members of the team qualified for the Games, not all of them will compete in multiple events (there are six overall).

Rather than assign all five spots on the team to "all-around" gymnasts who compete on each apparatus, the U.S. decided to allot one slot on the team to a specialist: Nedoroscik. He is competing only on pommel horse, a notoriously difficult apparatus and a weak spot for many teams.

But not this year, at least not for Team USA.

“What it comes down to is that [Nedoroscik’s] scores on pommel horse are so much higher than everybody else on that one event that he adds a tremendous amount of potential score," said Tim Daggett, an NBC Sports gymnastics analyst who himself won gold in the 1984 Olympics.

By the time Nedoroscik had shed his warm-up suit and glasses, the U.S. was clinging precariously to its third-place spot and counting on him to keep them there.

It was under the weight of that pressure that Nedoroscik hopped onto the handlebars. After a dizzying 40 seconds of spinning (by him) and screaming (by the crowd), he stuck the dismount with a smile and a fist pump.

His teammates hugged and hoisted him into the air. They already knew what just happened: USA men’s gymnastics had won bronze, its first Olympic team medal in 16 years.

Nedoroscik later told reporters that he had done his best to channel nerves into excitement.

“I’ve done this a million times at this point, and I just tried my hardest to enjoy every moment of that routine,” he said.

And he answered a question on many peoples’ minds: He can see without his glasses, but doesn’t think he’s using his eyes at all.

“It’s all feeling,” he added. “I see with my hands.”

Nedoroscik’s journey didn’t end on Monday. He’s the only member of Team USA who qualified for the final of any individual apparatus (you’ll never guess which one). The pommel horse final is slated for Saturday, and he’ll be chasing gold.

Nedoroscik’s path to the pommel horse — and Paris

Nedoroscik is a native of Worcester, Mass., and a 2020 graduate of Penn State, where he studied electrical engineering and competed in gymnastics all four years.

He got into the sport early, around the age of four, he told New England Public Media earlier this month.

“I would crawl up the walls, I’d shimmy up the door and it scared the babysitter,” he recalled. “And my parents just called me their ‘little monkey boy,’ and they decided, ‘Hey, this kid probably would do a good job if we put him in gymnastics.’

On his first day at the kids’ gym, he said, he somehow climbed the 15-foot rope all the way to the top — setting two decades’ of gymnastics into motion.

As a teen, Nedoroscik said he didn’t realize how good he was at the pommel horse until a visiting coach marveled that he could one day be a national champion. Sure enough, one year later, he won the Junior Olympic national title on pommel horse. By the time he got to college, he made that his focus.

“When you go from a club gym to a collegiate gym, you see just how talented gymnasts really are in this nation,” he said. “And purely just wanting to be the best at pommel horse at Penn State, I decided to specialize. And I've stuck with that ever since.”

Nedoroscik originally had his sights set on the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, sporting his signature goggles. But the team ultimately brought another pommel horse specialist after he fell at the trials, according to the Washington Post.

He went on to win gold in the world championships later that year and has continued to compete, dominating national and world competitions. His four U.S. pommel horse titles are tied for the most in U.S. history, according to USA Gymnastics.

After he was named to the Olympic team in late June, a stunned Nedoroscik told reporters that his longtime dream had come true.

“When I was very, very young people would tell me, ‘One day you’re going to be an Olympian!’ ” he said. “Back then I was just a dorky little kid. And now look at me — I’m a dorky adult, going to the Olympics.”

He told NEPM that he’s especially proud to have made it to Paris given the ups and downs of the last three years, and the disappointment he felt about not qualifying for Tokyo.

“This almost feels like my vengeance, right?” he said. “Coming back swinging.”

NPR's Becky Sullivan contributed reporting from Paris.