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

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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 come back. 

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

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

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

The Rubik’s dice is a approach of meditating and filling time on lengthy competitors days, he mentioned. He used to fret {that a} fast resolve was a foreboding signal, a warning {that a} poor efficiency would quickly comply with. “Up to now, I used to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, that is going to finish up being the perfect factor I do in the present day.’ So it could form of freak me out,” he mentioned. 

That modified this week. “However after I solved it beneath 10 seconds earlier than workforce finals, fixing it once more beneath 10 seconds in the present day, I used to be like, ‘All proper, we obtained this,'” he mentioned, laughing at a press convention afterward. 

On Saturday, at Paris’s Bercy Enviornment, Nedoroscik was certainly one of eight males competing for the gold on this area of interest equipment that’s so typically a weak spot for different sturdy 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.

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

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

Nedoroscik’s bronze on Saturday was his second medal of those Olympics after serving to the U.S. males’s gymnastics workforce win bronze through the workforce all-around closing earlier within the week.

Paul Ellis/AFP by way of Getty Photographs

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Paul Ellis/AFP by way of Getty Photographs

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

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

As an alternative, he mentioned, he determined to carry out his typical routine, irrespective of the circumstances, relatively than change to a tougher routine. “I performed round with upgrades yesterday, and it simply did not really feel prefer it was going that nicely,” Nedoroscik mentioned, including that he has been coping with stress accidents. 

That meant his possibilities of eclipsing McClenaghan’s excessive rating have been slim. 

“I actually did not know what he scored, and I did not know what I needed to get,” Nedoroscik mentioned. “However touchdown on the bottom and seeing his completely big rating, I used to be like, ‘I do not suppose I’ve achieved sufficient, however wow, that’s superb 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 mentioned on the press convention, turning to face Nedoroscik. “He can do big problem and pull it off when it issues.” 

Nedoroscik, a pommel horse specialist, was chosen to the U.S. males’s gymnastics workforce 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 mentioned. 

“I’ve simply been persistently on high of the world for the previous week now,” Nedoroscik mentioned. “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 workforce closing, 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 workforce medal the nation had received 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 feel, and I’m so glad to have been there,” Nedoroscik mentioned.