Stephen Nedoroscik, the ‘Pommel Horse Guy’ who charmed the internet, wins bronze : NPR

PARIS — For Stephen Nedoroscik, it is official: Fixing his Rubik’s dice in beneath 10 seconds the morning earlier than he competes within the Olympic Video games has now gone two-for-two as an omen of a medal to return. 

You could know Nedoroscik as merely “Pommel Horse Man,” if you’re one of many many People he dazzled together with his Clark Kent-style take-off-the-glasses-and-save-the-day heroics within the males’s gymnastics staff finals earlier this week, wherein his pommel horse routine clinched a historic medal for the U.S. 

On the morning of the staff ultimate, he’d solved a Rubik’s dice in beneath ten seconds, declaring it a “good omen” in a publish to his Instagram. 

On Saturday, Nedoroscik did it once more. “Good omen pt. 2,” he wrote — then seven hours later, he gained the bronze medal within the Olympic Video games pommel horse ultimate in Paris. 

The Rubik’s dice is a method of meditating and filling time on lengthy competitors days, he stated. He used to fret {that a} fast remedy was a foreboding signal, a warning {that a} poor efficiency would quickly comply with. “Prior to now, I used to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, that is going to finish up being the very best factor I do at the moment.’ So it might type of freak me out,” he stated. 

That modified this week. “However after I solved it beneath 10 seconds earlier than staff finals, fixing it once more beneath 10 seconds at the moment, I used to be like, ‘All proper, we received this,'” he stated, laughing at a press convention afterward. 

On Saturday, at Paris’s Bercy Enviornment, Nedoroscik was one in every of eight males competing for the gold on this area of interest equipment that’s so usually a weak spot for different robust all-around gymnasts. 

Earlier than he started, he eliminated the glasses that endeared him to so many, and he hooked them over the rim of the chalk bowl. Then got here his routine, some 40 seconds of mesmerizing swings of his legs in circles across the horse, with one-handed twirls on the handles and walks up and down the equipment.

In the course of the qualification spherical final weekend, Nedoroscik had tied for highest rating, lifting hopes of a gold medal within the ultimate.

However some rivals carried out more difficult routines on Saturday, together with Eire’s Rhys McClenaghan, who gained the occasion eventually 12 months’s World Championships and once more took the gold on Saturday, with a rating of 15.533. Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan gained silver.

In the long run, Nedoroscik’s rating of 15.3 gained him bronze. Nedoroscik was the one American male gymnast to qualify for an equipment ultimate.

Within the lineup of eight, Nedoroscik went fifth, after McClenaghan. Nedoroscik selected to not watch any rivals or take a look at any scores earlier than his flip. 

As an alternative, he stated, he determined to carry out his common routine, regardless of the circumstances, fairly than swap to a harder routine. “I performed round with upgrades yesterday, and it simply did not really feel prefer it was going that nicely,” Nedoroscik stated, including that he has been coping with stress accidents. 

That meant his probabilities of eclipsing McClenaghan’s excessive rating had been slim. 

“I actually did not know what he scored, and I did not know what I needed to get,” Nedoroscik stated. “However touchdown on the bottom and seeing his completely large rating, I used to be like, ‘I do not suppose I’ve completed sufficient, however wow, that’s wonderful for Rhys.'”

Afterward, McClenaghan pulled Nedoroscik in for a hug. “I used to be nervous watching you, as a result of you are able to do any routine,” McClenaghan stated on the press convention, turning to face Nedoroscik. “He can do large issue and pull it off when it issues.” 

Nedoroscik, a pommel horse specialist, was chosen to the U.S. males’s gymnastics staff to bolster what officers considered as a relative weak spot for the remainder of the squad.

The eye he is drawn over the previous week for his performances has been each enjoyable and distracting, he stated. 

“I’ve simply been persistently on prime of the world for the previous week now,” Nedoroscik stated. “I actually needed to go and switch off my notifications yesterday as a result of I wanted to have the ability to lock in for this competitors.” 

Within the staff ultimate, the U.S. had been assigned to the pommel horse for its final rotation. And Nedoroscik went final — which means it was his routine that clinched the bronze for the U.S., the primary staff medal the nation had gained in 16 years.

However till then, he needed to wait as his teammates carried out on the opposite 5 occasions; in its broadcast, NBC even included a countdown timer, exhibiting the hour-and-then-some that Nedoroscik had sit on the sidelines.

When he landed his routine, his teammates burst into joyous cheers and lifted him onto their shoulders. “It was simply the best second of my life, I believe, and I’m so pleased to have been there,” Nedoroscik stated.