IIt was difficult to say who was the biggest attraction at Bercy Arena on August 3: Simone Biles or Stephen Nedoroscik. Biles competed on vault with teammate Jade Carey, and Nedoroscik competed on pommel horse, the only member of the men’s gymnastics team to qualify for the final of the event.
The crowd’s roar was equally deafening for both – an ode to the incredible gymnastics each performed under pressure in Paris – Biles winning the team and overall event, and Nedorscik performing a clutch routine to help the US men’s team. win his first medal in 16 years.
At some point before the competition, when the cameras are focused on him, Nedoroscik performs a ritual – pulling his ear; it’s the one he performs before every competition to honor his family and loved ones. It began as a secret greeting to his paternal grandfather, who passed away last year, but continues as a way to say “hi” to relatives.
He sent the signal again as he came out to receive the bronze medal, behind Ireland’s Rhys McClenaghan, who won the country’s first Olympic gold medal in gymnastics, and Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan, who won the silver medal in his first appearance in games.
Nedoroscik’s bronze is the second medal for the United States men’s team, which won bronze in the team event, and will be the last at the Paris Games, as Nedoroscik was the only member to qualify for the final of the event.
A fan of solving Rubik’s Cubes as a way to relax, Nedoroscik felt like the day was going well when he solved the cube in less than 10 seconds, but then he worried that this might be the best thing that happened to him today. It was not.
Despite all the internet frenzy over Nedoroscik’s look, in which his black-rimmed glasses play a major role, the 25-year-old Massachusetts native actually competes without glasses on the pommel horse, an event he made famous during qualifying, when he waited 2.5 hours just to compete in an event.
Nedoroscik says he doesn’t actually need to see to swing his legs around the device and move his body on it. He likes to visualize his routines, which sparked a series of memes when he was captured with his head back and eyes closed waiting to compete during the team final on July 29th. I have good muscle memory,” he said of training after the US Olympic trials in late June.
He put himself back in that zone on the pommel horse for the event final – earning 8.9 out of 10.0 points for the execution, which is what put him above Tokyo champion, Britain’s Max Whitlock.
His family and girlfriend, Tess McCracken, a retired college gymnast he met on his first day at Pennsylvania State University during gymnastics team orientation, were in Paris to witness Nedoroscik’s viral performance in the team event and his second medal at the end of pommel horse. The bespectacled electrical engineering graduate now lives in Florida with McCracken and a cat named Kyushu, to the city where Nedoroscik won his 2021 pommel horse world championship title. McCracken works for a contract research organization in the biopharmaceutical industry and says that Nedoroscik has been firmly focused on making the Olympic team and performing well in Paris, and for months has been eliminating distractions to train and be mentally prepared for the 45-second jumps he does on the horse.
Nedoroscik took the pommel horse when a trainer noticed his abilities and suggested he could be a national champion on that apparatus. He did it better and is now an Olympic medalist.
Meanwhile, Irishman McClenaghan performed an impressive routine, which was not the most difficult in the competition, but he obtained 8.933 in execution, and continued to dominate the event – he was world champion in 2022 and 2023, after Nedoroscik, who won the title in 2021 “What an incredible finale to be a part of,” said McClenaghan. “I was telling Stephen that this was the best pommel horse final that has ever happened in the history of men’s gymnastics. Being a part of this is absolutely incredible. Any of these eight finalists [competing] I could have taken gold today.” He admitted he was nervous watching Nedoroscik, who competed after him, because he knew the American “has it tough and can do it when he needs to.”
Good friends who have great respect for each other, McClenaghan and Nedoroscik said they talked about what’s next – “LA baby, let’s go” – McClenaghan said he told Nedoroscik, referring to the upcoming Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. “I love the praise he’s getting for the team’s final result — I love seeing everyone find out about Stephen Nedoroscik,” McClenaghan said of his competitor’s sudden Internet fame.
In the women’s vault, each gymnast performed two vaults and their scores were averaged. Team USA Biles faced Brazilian Rebeca Andrade again, after saying that “I don’t want to compete against Rebeca anymore… She’s very close. I was uncomfortable, guys; I was stressed,” she said after the team event in Paris.
Event finals often happen when gymnasts decide to bring out riskier or more difficult skills they’ve trained in – ones that could cost them valuable points in qualifying, team and all-around events if they make mistakes. Biles, however, decided to perform her Biles II, Yurchenko’s double pike jump, during the all-around event because, she said, she felt Andrade could surpass her without it. “She is very close [in her scores]”Biles said after winning the all-around over Andrade. “In each event, we have very similar scores, so I thought, ‘OK, I guess I have to bring out the big guns this time.’”
Biles maintained this strategy in the vault final, opting to fly through the air with Biles II to open the vault. She gained so much momentum on the two somersaults she did in the air above the jump that she bounced back onto the landing and went slightly out of bounds, earning a 0.1 deduction. She also generated enough energy in her second jump, the Cheng, to bounce back upon landing. But his average score of 15.3 was enough for gold, 0.334 points ahead of Andrade, who won silver. It’s Biles’ 10th Olympic medal and seventh gold. In Paris, Biles won gold in every event she competed in.
Biles’ teammate Jade Carey, who was also on the Tokyo team, landed two strong jumps to win bronze. Carey was also scheduled to compete in the floor event final, in which she won gold in Tokyo. However, during qualifying in Paris, Carey went out of line and suffered an unusual fall and revealed that she was not feeling well that day, and that there was “really something wrong”, without revealing the cause. Only two athletes from each country are eligible to compete in the final of an event, and Carey scored lower than Biles and Chiles, who qualified for the U.S.
All of the women who competed in the qualifying round at the start of the Paris Olympics – Biles, Carey, Chiles and Lee – qualified for at least one event final. Lee competes on August 4 on uneven bars, and the following day, Biles and Lee will compete on beam and Biles and Chiles on floor exercise.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
