Why Stephen Nedoroscik Doesn’t Need Glasses for Pommel Horse Routine

2024 Olympics: Who is Pommel Horse Gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik? Meet the Viral Star!

Fans are flipping out over the pommel horse guy at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Because when it was Stephen Nedoroscik’s turn to shine at the one exercise he was brought to perform at the men’s gymnastics final July 29, the athlete whipped his glasses off and almost effortlessly helped his U.S. team win their first medal in 16 years.

“The thing about pommel horse is,” Nedoroscik told Today after the event of removing his spectacles, “if I keep them on, they’re gonna fly somewhere.”

The 25-year-old has two eye conditions, which he has spoken about on social media before: Strabismus, or being cross-eyed, and coloboma, or missing eye tissue, which causes him to have light sensitivity. But Nedoroscik doesn’t need to have perfect vision to perform his specialized form of gymnastics.

“When I go up on the pommel horse, it’s all about feeling the equipment. I don’t even see when I’m doing my gymnastics,” the Penn State alum added to Today after Team USA took home bronze, in part thanks to his high-scoring pommel horse routine. “It’s all in the hands. I can feel everything.”

Nedoroscik also explained the moment cameras caught him reclining with his eyes closed ahead of his performance.

“So in that moment, I’m doing my breathing exercises,” the two-time NCAA Champion said. “We always try to keep our heart rate down. And through that five minutes I’m sitting there, I’m just visualizing my routine over and over again.”

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And, yes, the athlete has seen the memes comparing him to Superman alter-ego Clark Kent. “I think they’re awesome,” he said. “I’m representing the people that wear glasses well.”

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While many on social media hail him a gymnastics hero, the Worcester, Mass. native said after the medal ceremony that his team had given him positive momentum to ace that final performance.

“These guys did that to the T, especially on vault,” he told NBC Sports’ Mike Tirico after the final. “You could get goosebumps from watching that back. And going out on pommel horse—last guy up in the whole competition—I had a good feeling that our team was in a great spot.”

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He added, “I was like, ‘Let’s just get it done, let’s go for it. If I put this dismount up, team USA gets a medal.’ And I think you could see it, right away when I land: goosebumps, the best moment of my life.”

And his girlfriend could not be prouder. “I was so lightheaded from the screaming that I nearly fainted,” Tess McCracken, 26, told NBC News July 30, noting she was mentally telling Nedoroscik, “‘Stay on the horse.’”

Describing the athlete as a “goofy guy,” McCracken also expressed support for her boyfriend’s newfound fame as a viral star.

“Blowing up on the internet has been such an unexpected side effect of this whole adventure,” she said. “It has been one of the best times.”

(E!, Today and NBC News are part of the NBCUniversal family.)

Read on to find out more about Team USA at the 2024 Olympics…

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Noah Lyles

Noah Lyles is in the running to be declared the fastest man in the world.

The 2023 world champion in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4×100 meter relay—the rare sprint treble—has designs on sweeping all three in Paris after a surprising bronze finish in the 100 in Tokyo.

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Simone Biles

Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history, full stop. But the 2016 all-around Olympic gold medalist has unfinished business to attend to in Paris after a case of the twisties prompted her to pull out of most events in Tokyo in 2021.

Representing Team USA alongside Biles are Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera.

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Alyssa Naeher 

Longtime women’s national soccer team goalie Alyssa Naeher has two World Cup titles, a slew of impressive stats and a big gap in her resume she’d love to fill with Paris gold after the squad’s bronze showing in Tokyo.

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Sha’Carri Richardson

Sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was supposed to make her Olympics debut in Tokyo but was sidelined after a positive marijuana test. Now the reigning world champion in the 100 meters, she’s a favorite to torch the competition in Paris in her signature event.

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Katie Ledecky

Swimmer Katie Ledecky has 10 Olympic medals, seven of them gold, and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May. Competing in her fourth Games, the Stanford grad has a chance to become the first female swimmer to win gold four straight times if she dominates once again in the 800 meters. 

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Walker Zimmerman

Olympic soccer requires the men’s teams to be all 23-and-younger with three spots allowed for “overage” players—which is why veteran defender Walker Zimmerman thought his dream of playing on this stage ended when the U.S. men failed to qualify in 2016.

“Then as things materialized this year,” the 31-year-old told the LA Times, “just getting the opportunity is amazing.” 

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Nikki Hiltz

“If you had asked me at the Trials in 2021 if I regretted coming out, I would have said yes,” runner Nikki Hiltz told NBC Sports of coming out as trans and nonbinary not long before they failed to qualify for Tokyo. 

But Hiltz didn’t give up—on their truth or their sport—winning U.S. indoor and outdoor titles in the 1500m in 2023, repeating the indoor feat in 2024 and running a field-leading 3:55.33 to take the women’s 1500m at Trials on June 30.

“It’s the last day of Pride Month,” Hiltz told NBC Sports at the finish line, “and I wanted to run this one for my community.”

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Coco Gauff

Tennis champ Coco Gauff, winner of the 2023 U.S. Open, is ranked second in the world heading into Paris. The 20-year-old is making her Olympics debut after a positive COVID test dashed her plans for Tokyo.

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Victor Montalvo

Top-ranked in the U.S. and No. 2 in the world, B-boy Victor Montalvo is ready to turn the Olympics on its head as breaking makes its long-awaited debut at the Paris Games.

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LeBron James

There’s never only one superstar on the U.S. men’s basketball team, but four-time NBA champion LeBron James is appearing in what will almost certainly be his last Olympics and he’ll be one of Team USA’s two designated flagbearers at the July 26 Opening Ceremony.

James told reporters he was “super-appreciative and-super humbled” by the honor.

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Chuck Aoki

There’s nothing not badass about wheelchair rugby and Chuck Aoki has been a star of the U.S. Paralympic team since London in 2012. With a bronze and two silvers under his belt, winning gold in Paris would really complement his collection.

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Hunter Woodhall

While Hunter Woodhall is not least known for being long-jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall’s supportive other half, the University of Arkansas grad is also a sprinting machine. The two-time Paralympian—and first-ever double-amputee athlete to earn an NCAA Division I scholarship—heads to Paris having dominated in the men’s T62 400m and T62 100m at Trials.

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Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth

Two athletes, but a packaged set as far as beach volleyball is concerned. Louisiana State alums and best friends Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss hadn’t even turned pro yet when, in April 2021, Nuss gifted Kloth an ankle bracelet for her birthday inscribed with “August 11, 2024.”

If you’re guessing that’s the date of the women’s finals at the Paris Olympics, you are correct.

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Oksana Masters

Six-time Paralympian Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine in 1989 with radiation-related birth defects—including webbed fingers and tibial malformation—connected to the Chernobyl disaster. Growing up in Louisville, Ky., with adoptive mom Gay Masters, she underwent a number of surgeries, including respective leg amputations at 9 and 14—after which she took up rowing.

But sun, snow… It’s all the same for the seven-time gold medalist, who has three Winter Paralympics as a para-cross-country skier and para-biathlete and three Summer Paralympics as a para-cyclist and para-rower under her belt heading into Paris, where she’ll compete in cycling events.

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Caroline Marks

After finishing just shy of the podium in Tokyo, surfer Caroline Marks is ready to ride her 2023 world title to Olympic victory in… Well, not Paris. All of the surfing will be taking place at Teahupo’o on Tahiti, nearly 10,000 miles away from the rest of the festivities.

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Jessica Long

Swimmer Jessica Long, whose Instagram bio reads “Born without legs + living my best life,” is headed to her sixth Paralympics. The 29-time medalist, 16 of them gold, is pretty much just racing for bragging rights at this point. 

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A’ja Wilson

Las Vegas Aces, um, ace and two-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson will be leading the U.S. women’s basketball team in their quest for their eighth straight gold medal. (The men are looking for only their fifth straight, having been vanquished in 2004.)

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Caeleb Dressel

Butterfly and freestylin’ fool Caeleb Dressel won five gold medals in Tokyo, no big deal, to bring his career Olympic gold tally to seven. Paris will be the swimmer’s third Games and first as a dad, having welcomed son August Wilder Dressel with wife Meghan Dressel in February. 

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Jessica Parratto and Delaney Schnell

After Jessica Parratto earned a silver medal in Tokyo for women’s synchronized 10m platform with partner Delaney Schnell—Team USA’s first-ever medal in that event—the 5-foot-2 athlete retired to, as she told NBC Sports, “finally be a normal person.”

She did that for, like, a year until Schnell wooed her back into the pool. But to be clear, Parratto said of her return before they qualified for Paris, “I didn’t do it because she wanted me to. I really did it because I wanted to.”

But she doesn’t mind the camaraderie, either. When Schnell banged her feet at the Montreal Diving World Cup in May, Parratto’s first international event back from retirement, “it was a really good bonding moment for us,” she said, “and just being like, okay, we got this.”

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Fred Richard

The U.S. men do gymnastics, too, and Fred Richard was the top scorer on both nights of the 2024 Olympic Trials. Obviously fans will flip if the 2023 NCAA all-around (and horizontal bars, and parallel bars) champion from University of Michigan helps the national team make an Olympic podium for the first time since 2008.

Watch the 2024 Paris Olympics daily on NBC and Peacock until the summer games end with the Closing Ceremony on Sunday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.