Riding The Pommel Horse Right to Exciting Olympic Fame

One of the great things about the Olympic Games is that there always is a Clark Kent who reveals himself to be Superman.

Gymnast Simone Biles is the undisputed face of the Summer Games, and many other athletes are household names with sports fans — LeBron James and Stephen Curry in men’s basketball, Dana Taurasi in women’s basketball, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, and Scottie Scheffler in golf, Katie Ledecky in swimming, and Coco Gauff in tennis, just to name a few.

But when NBC put together a list of “top 100 athletes to watch” at the Games, Stephen Nedoroscik wasn’t among them.

If that name still doesn’t ring a bell, try this description: The pommel horse guy.

Nedoroscik competes for the US men’s gymnastics team, but only in one event — the pommel horse. He’s among the best in the world in that event, however, and he proved it by helping the men finish with a bronze medal in the team competition. He then won bronze in the individual finals for the event on Saturday.

Bronze team. Bronze horse. I am forever grateful to have had this opportunity. This Olympic experience has been everything and more. Thank you to everyone who has supported me. Bronze is a great achievement, but I got eyes for something shinier in my future #2028

— Stephen Nedoroscik (@GymnastSteve) August 4, 2024

Nedoroscik was dubbed the “Clark Kent” of men’s gymnastics when the story of his sight-impaired journey went viral on social media. He wears black, thick-rimmed glasses like those worn by the fictional Kent, but he takes them off when he gets on the pommel horse — like when he posted a team-high score of 14.866 in the event during the team competition.

“He really does not use his eyes to do the pommels,” his mother said. “It’s basically he knows where his hands belong, and he gets the positioning down right, so he can nail routines like he did the other night.”

During the other events of the team competition, the NBC cameras routinely showed Nedoroscik encouraging his teammates and celebrating their performances. He was in Paris to compete in just one event, but he played a supporting role in all of them. And because of the airtime, the world learned that he competes with strabismus, a genetic condition that hinders his ability to see clearly because his pupils stay dilated all the time, that he can solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than 10 seconds, and that he has an electrical engineering degree from Penn State.

I, too, have a degree from Penn State, but it’s in accounting. I can’t solve a Rubik’s Cube in 10 hours, much less 10 seconds, and I rarely get on a horse, especially one without a saddle.

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The Olympics now come and go with a certain amount of controversy, whether its for something that happens in the opening ceremony or the reality that many events have lost the love-of-the-game feel that they had when all the athletes were amateurs. That’s why stories like Nedoroscik’s matter — they remind us that hard work, focus, and a love for what you do and for your teammates still exists and still matters. And that’s something we can apply in our own lives, no matter what events we compete in.

Featured image: Nedoroscik at the 2021 US Championships