Olympian Stephen Nedoroscik on viral fame after pommel horse exercise

Since I left Paris, Stephen Nedoroscik has literally worn his two Olympic medals close to his chest. The gymnast wore his two bronze medals during a recent performance at The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. They are the biggest reward for his experience at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The flood of viral memes that followed his first pommel horse routine was a real bonus.

“Going into this competition, I had big dreams, big hopes, and now to look back and say, ‘Oh my God, I actually did that,’ is an incredible feeling,” Nedoroscik said. The athlete became the official commentator as Fallon performed his first medal-winning pommel horse routine for him to watch. “Right here is the skill that always worries me,” he noted as he turned around in the video and carefully determined his hand position. “One, two, three, four, five,” he said, counting himself off. “I’m saying that in my head.”

Nedoroscik beamed as proudly as he watched the clip as he did when he made the landing in Paris. “It’s so nice to watch it again,” he said. In that moment, he was completely focused. The viral “sleep mode” meme of the athlete with his head tilted back and eyes closed did not depict him sleeping, but rather clearing his mind before he had to perform. “We arrive early, warm up and then march off and compete. So it took about five hours,” he explained. “Then when I finally got to the horse, I had to calm down.”

When Nedoroscik caught wind of his viral wave before the finals, he had to do a similar reset. “I learned shortly after and then before the pommel horse finals that I literally had to turn off my notifications,” he said, “so I wasn’t too engrossed in the whole thing.” Sitting with his head tilted back and Clark Kent glasses on, the gymnast often visualizes his routine over and over. His win was the first Olympic medal for the U.S. gymnastics team in 16 years.

He doesn’t have the same prep process for his skills, which comes with much lower stakes. When Fallon puts together a Rubik’s Cube for him to solve, Nedoroscik takes a few seconds to skim over it – and then just 15 seconds to finish it.