The Pommel Horse Guy: Who Is Stephen Nedoroscik And Why Does He Have The World Buzzing?

Stephen Nedoroscik was relatively unknown before he stepped into the spotlight at the 2024 Paris Olympics, competing in the men's pommel horse individual and team event. Not only did Nedoroscik turn in a phenomenal performance, scoring two bronze medals — one for his individual performance and one for Team USA – but his bespectacled charisma also won over the hearts of America.  

After competing in Paris, Nedoroscik became a viral sensation. It seems every Summer Olympics churns out at least one unstoppable meme or viral photograph, like the unimpressed face of gymnast McKayla Maroney, who went viral in 2012 for her scrunched expression atop the second place medal podium for the vault event. 

However, Nedoroscik is different. This time, it was not just one performance, image, or sound bite that has the whole internet talking. No, it's Nedoroscik's whole Clark Kent aesthetic that has the netizens typing away. Nedoroscik caught the eye of Olympics watchers as he seemingly dozed on the sidelines. However, when it was time for his event, he sprang into action, whipped off his thick glasses, and delivered Team USA men's gymnastics its first medal since 2008. But just who is Stephen Nedoroscik?

All heroes have to start somewhere, and just like Superman was famously raised on a humble farm in Smallville, Kansas, pommel horse icon Stephen Nedoroscik got his start in the town of Worcester, Massachusetts. However, while it may not be internationally recognized as a hustling and bustling place, Worcester is the second most populated city in the state, clocking in just under Boston. 

Although this might make him a verified city boy, Nedoroscik's beginnings were no less humble that Clark Kent's. Born to Cheryl and John Nedoroscik, Stephen has two sisters — Samantha and Anastasia, who is actually his twin sister. While Stephen hasn't opened up publicly about what it's like being a twin, Anastasia let the cat out of the bag when she posted a celebratory post on Facebook congratulating her womb-mate for making it to the 2024 Olympic Games. 

"As you all may know," Anastasia wrote, "my twin brother Stephen Nedoroscik has qualified for the Olympic Team for the Paris 2024 games, and I could not be more proud of him!" She went on to share that she had secured her plane ticket to travel to Paris and be in the stands cheering him on. According to their Facebook profiles, Nedoroscik's twin sister is currently employed as a math teacher while his other sister, Samantha, is a store manager at a hospital retailer.

There are many last names that make cute baby names — Bennett, Campbell, Kennedy. Sadly for breakout Olympic star Stephen Nedoroscik, we're not expecting any new parents to be scrawling his surname on their baby's birth certificate any time soon. Although it's a name that has been making headlines ever since Mr. Pommel Horse stole the nation's heart with his geeky charm and starring performance for the U.S. men's gymnastics team, the athlete's surname is actually a Slovak name. 

Stephen's family on his father's side emigrated to America from Slovakia generations ago. Specifically, his great-grandparents reportedly hail from present-day Haligovce and Veľká Lesná, Slovakia. They are both regions in northern Slovakia known for their small populations. Stephen himself was named after his grandfather on his father's side, who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean War. His dziadziuś ("grandpa" in Polish) service isn't ancient history to Stephen, though.

The gymnastics star puzzled "Today" show watchers when he tugged on his earlobe during the Olympics broadcast from Paris. It wasn't a tactical itch, though, but a sign of respect to his dziadziuś who passed away in 2023. "I've kept the tradition up and now it always means, 'Hey,' to everyone that I love," Stephen explained.

What your eyes reveal about your health is surprisingly a lot. For example, having bulging eyes might indicate Graves' disease, while a gray ring around the edge of your cornea could be a sign of high triglycerides, which can increase your risk for heart attack and stroke. While outsiders might presume that Nedoroscik is just your average far- or near-sighted person, he actually has been diagnosed with two conditions — strabismus and coloboma. Essentially, strabismus means cross-eyed. In a TikTok video, Nedoroscik opened up about his condition. "I have Strabismus, I made this video to see if anybody can switch their dominant eye on command like I can. I shift my world viewpoint from one eye to the other. Like one camera to another [two inches] away."

Nedoroscik's second eye condition, coloboma, occurs when the eye is missing certain tissues. Oftentimes, sufferers of coloboma have blurred barriers between their iris and the pupil. Nevertheless, his conditions have not kept him from participating in the Olympics — nor absolutely dominating on the pommel horse. In fact, his glasses have become his trademark. USA Gymnastics even posted a photo on X of Nedoroscik's glasses with the caption "You know what time it is."

Before Stephen Nedoroscik took home a bronze medal in the pommel horse final at the 2024 Paris Olympics, one of the last times a male gymnast from Team USA won a medal happened in 2016, when Danell Leyva won two silvers on parallel bars and high bar. You might be asking, then, where's Nedoroscik's medal on the bars? Well, he actually only specializes in the pommel horse. Hence, his internet nickname "Mr. Pommel Horse." 

Nedoroscik wasn't always a specialist, though. When he first walked into a gym in 2003, he practiced on all apparatuses, as he detailed to Penn State's The Daily Collegian. However, the Olympian admitted that he had a realization when he was in high school that he had reached a stalemate in all other events besides the pommel horse. Rather than giving up on gymnastics altogether, Nedoroscik decided to pour all of his energy into training and competing on the pommel horse. 

As unique as this situation is, it helped to produce one of the most wholesome internet moments of the 2024 Olympics. On X, formerly Twitter, the official account for Elmo posted, "Mr. Stephen Nedoroscik, Elmo wants to be a specialist too! Elmo was thinking he could be the giggle specialist or maybe a monster-hug specialist. Elmo will keep thinking!" Nedoroscik sweetly responded, "Elmo, the great thing about specializing in something is you get to decide. I think you'll be a great specialist in anything you end up choosing!"

Sorry, ladies, if you had your eye on the breakout star of the 2024 Paris Olympics, you're out of luck, as this Superman of gymnastics has been in a relationship with his girlfriend, Tess McCracken, since 2016. While Mrs. Pommel Horse, as she now goes by on X, has operated under the radar for most of her life, she has since been thrust into the limelight right alongside her long-time love. 

The power couple met during their first year of college at Pennsylvania State University, and it was gymnastics that brought them together. While Nedoroscik was a member of the Penn State men's gymnastics team, McCracken was a member of the women's artistic gymnastics team. After finding love in the gym, McCracken bid adieu to her tumbling career, officially leaving the sport in 2020. Originally from Texas, the former gymnast decided to focus on her education, going on to pursue a master's degree from Penn State in biotechnology. While her boyfriend obviously stuck with gymnastics, he also graduated from Penn State — he obtained a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.

McCracken remains plugged into the men's side of gymnastics. McCracken was out in full force at the Paris Olympics, posting on Instagram in support of Nedoroscik. In one post, McCracken wrote, "History = Made. The most insane, magical day watching you close it out to bring home the first team medal for USA in sixteen years. Words can't capture how proud I am of you."

Having a hobby can have surprising benefits for your health. Perhaps no one knows this better than pommel horse hero Stephen Nedoroscik, who has professed his love for solving Rubik's Cubes. This isn't any old hobby, though. It seems Nedoroscik takes solving Rubik's Cubes very seriously and has even attached a bit of superstition around his solving time. 

Right before he had his shining moment during the men's gymnastics team final, Nedoroscik took to Instagram to brag that he had just solved a Rubik's Cube in an astonishing 9.32 seconds. His caption was short and sweet, and very telling as to how much meaning the gymnast reads into his Rubik's Cube practice. "Good omen," he wrote, foreshadowing the powerful pommel horse performance he would soon turn in (via USA Today). 

Nedoroscik also explained to Teen Vogue how he used a Rubik's Cube to help him focus at the Olympics. He said, "I probably solved it about 100 times, maybe even more than that. It's a way for me to kill time and is also a stress reliever as well." Nedoroscik even has his personal best on the Rubik's Cube listed in his TikTok bio, an impressive 8.664 seconds.

Even Olympic athletes enjoy gaming. Just look at Olympian Stephen Nedoroscik, who swears by video games as one of his cherished passions in life. Nedoroscik's friends lovingly exposed him in a profile in The New York Times, revealing that one of the gymnast's favorite pastimes — outside of twirling on his pommel horse — is playing video games on his Xbox. His favorite game? The car-themed Rocket League. Nedoroscik even reportedly brought his computer with him to France on the off chance that he would have time to log a game or two in the Olympic village. 

The athlete's pal and fellow gymnast Jack Baldwin told the publication, "Whenever I go online and go on Discord it shows you what game is playing and he's usually on Rocket League. He was pretty good. He was always in the living room playing or just looking up clips about how to get better at Rocket League."

After demolishing his competition at the Olympics, Nedoroscik corroborated this portrait of a game-obsessed introvert, telling The Bleacher Report what he was most looking forward to once he got back home: "I'm going to sit in my gaming chair and pick my cat up — and make him hug me."

After Stephen Nedoroscik stepped atop the medal podium at the 2024 Paris Olympics, there was one question on Matt Carbone's mind: "Are we doing a parade for Stephen?" The New York Times reported that Carbone, whose family owned the gym where the pommel horse king trained before joining Team USA, was just one of many hometown pals who rejoiced at the news that the Massachusetts icon has clinched two bronze medals. 

One of the sweetest testimonies given regarding Nedoroscik's character came from one of his former teachers, Michael Meagher, who taught the Olympian's robotics course at Worcester Technical High School. Without a boys gymnastics team, it seemed that Nedoroscik poured all of his energy into his STEM-centered activities. "He's a kid you remember that's for sure," Meagher said, recalling a passionate and talented student. 

Remembering the bespectacled wonder that all of America fell in love with during the 2024 Olympics, Meagher said, "That quirky, nerdy guy, that's Steve. ... I could not be happier for this young man. Him going viral just cracks me up." Just as Meagher has never forgotten his former student, Nedoroscik hasn't forgotten where he came from and all those who helped him succeed. According to Meagher, the gymnast would often return to alma mater after graduating to encourage students in their engineering work. One can imagine that, upon his return to Worcester following the Olympics, the champ will have much more to talk to students about.

Stephen Nedoroscik detailed his trajectory with the pommel horse to Penn State's The Daily Collegian, saying, "Once I got to high school it seemed that pommel horse was the only event that was still progressing for me and I was rapidly progressing in it. Junior year I qualified to the Junior Olympic Nationals and I won my first nationals, then I won my senior year and that's what hooked the eyes of a lot of schools in that I can be a really good pommel horse specialist."

Nedoroscik was progressing in gymnastics at breakneck speed. His first big win on the pommel horse was taking first place at the 2019 Winter Cup — his first title at the elite level. It wouldn't be too long after this slam dunk that the Massachusetts native found himself being ferried around the world to compete against other elite athletes from other nations. 

At only 20 years old, Nedoroscik made his international gymnastics debut at the Doha World Cup held in Doha, Qatar. Unfortunately, he only placed sixth individually. Yet, it would only be up from here, with his Olympic debut taking place in 2024.

"I'm on top of the world," Stephen Nedoroscik told Teen Vogue in August 2024. His reason? He had just won two bronze medals at his first Olympic Games ever. And not only that, but these were two history-making medals. Not only was this Team USA men's gymnastics first medal in 16 years, but his bronze medal for the pommel horse event was the only individual win for an American male gymnast in the entire 2024 Paris Olympics. 

Though Nedoroscik's performance for the individual pommel horse event timed in at only 40 seconds, it was enough to kickstart a legacy. He received an impressive score of 15.300, coming in third just behind Ireland's Rhys McClenaghan and Kazakhstan's Nariman Kurbanov. As for the team final, he came in clutch again with a score of 14.866. While many interpreted Nedoroscik's calm appearance before the final as him sleeping, the gymnast revealed on the "Today" show that he was actually practicing breathing exercises.

"We always try to keep our heart rate down," he said, "and through that five minutes I'm sitting there, I'm just visualizing my routine over and over ... that's all I'm doing in my head." Nedoroscik was doing anything but keeping calm, though, when it came time to accept his medals. Celebrating the fruits of his labor, Mr. Pommel Horse rejoiced alongside Team USA, punching the sky and hollering with joy. 

When we say Nedoroscik won big at the 2024 Paris Olympics, we mean big. The pommel horse specialist is guaranteed a place in the history books after clutching Team USA a bronze medal after over a decade of missing out on the medal podium entirely, but not only that, he is also now one of the leading figures in American sports. 

He was even inaugurated into Olympic fame by one of the most popular Olympians of all time, Simone Biles. Speaking with Teen Vogue in August 2024, Nedoroscik revealed that Biles had approached him in the Olympic village one day to show him a funny meme of himself. "That's just so surreal, " the gymnast said, because I don't think she really even knew what my name was a month ago. She's just an icon, she's the GOAT."

While "GOAT" is already taken, Nedoroscik might be in line for a fancy new epithet himself in the future — perhaps one a bit grander than simply "Pommel Horse Guy" or "Mr. Pommel Horse." However, for the time being it seems the gymnast and his crew are having fun with it. And that's not all, Nedoroscik has also signed to the talent agency Smith & Saint, hopefully foreshadowing loads of sponsorship deals coming his way.