Mr. Pommel Horse has had quite the week.
Stephen Nedoroscik, dubbed “Pommel Horse Guy” by the internet, became an Olympic bronze medalist Monday, then a meme. Now, he has an individual Olympic medal.
He won bronze on the pommel horse, performing a more difficult routine than in the team final and scoring a 15.300. Rhys McClenaghan won Ireland’s first gold in gymnastics with a 15.533 in the final. Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan took silver.
Nedoroscik will be the only individual medalist of the games for the U.S. men, since no other gymnasts qualified for apparatus finals.
Nedoroscik, 25, became a breakout star of the Paris Games after anchoring the U.S. men’s gymnastics team to their first team Olympic medal since 2008, clinching the historic podium finish with his agility on the pommel horse.
He made the Olympic team based solely on the strength of his routine on the event. He’s so good on the horse, he doesn’t even have to bother with the other five apparatuses and has not trained them in many years.
He may not have the obvious muscle of some of the other male gymnasts, who perform triple back flips and static holds on the still rings, but Nedoroscik is a wizard on the pommel horse and won the apparatus title at the 2021 world championships.
Much like the balance beam on the women’s side, it’s an event that tends to plague even the fiercest of competitors and is therefore highly valuable.
In the team final, Nedoroscik faced a grueling 2½-hour wait on the sidelines before he could perform his one routine, but the circumstances could not have been more cinematic. To withstand the mounting pressure as his time approached, Nedoroscik could be seen meditating on the sidelines and finally, removing his trademark glasses as he locked in.
“I don’t even really see when I’m doing my gymnastics,” he said. “It’s all in the hands. I can feel everything.”
When the moment finally came, he delivered under pressure and was promptly hoisted into the air by his teammates, a Team USA hero and a primetime star for those watching at home.
The internet was quick to dub him “the pommel horse guy,” and likened him to Super Man’s alter ego, Clark Kent.
Nedoroscik doesn’t mind. He told NBC’s “TODAY” show that it’s “an awesome comparison.”
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