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As a real-life Clark Kent from “Superman” lore, Worcester native and Florida transplant Stephen Nedoroscik captured television audiences and social media viewers as the unassuming, bespectacled gymnast-turned-medal-winning “Pommel Horse Guy” at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
And behind every great Pommel Horse Guy, there’s a great Pommel Horse Mom.
Meet “Ma” Kent, Cheryl Nedoroscik.
Along with Stephen’s father, retired Webster Police Officer John Nedoroscik, and Stephen’s two sisters, Anastasia (Stephen’s twin) and Samantha, Mrs. Nedoroscik, a client experience manager for Bay State Savings Bank in Holden, was cheering on the hometown superhero during the Olympics last month, in which Stephen Nedoroscik led the USA men’s gymnastics team to win the bronze, the first team medal the US had won in 16 years. He also won bronze in his signature event, pommel horse.
“Oh my gosh, it’s surreal. I am beyond proud and excited. It seems like anywhere I go and they see my name, they’re like, ‘Are you related?’” Mrs. Nedoroscik said. “It was a dream come true for all of us. We were just ecstatic that he hit all three routines with no real falters. He did an amazing job.”
Mrs. Nedoroscik confesses that she was nervous for her son during the competition.
“I really wanted Steve to do well because there were so many derogatory remarks about the USA choosing him to be on the five-man team, since he is a specialist,” Mrs. Nedoroscik said. “And the pommel horse can be very cruel. If you ask any men gymnast, they will tell you they hate the pommel because it’s so easy to fall off. That was my biggest fear. I really wanted him to do extraordinarily well for the team. And he did.”
But it wasn’t easy for Mrs. Nedoroscik.
“My heart is pounding like you can’t imagine in those stands. I feel like I was going to faint or pass out. I didn’t know what I was going to do but I had to do some breathing exercises,” she said. “On TV, you’ll see me at the beginning. You can watch me breathing because I am just so scared. And I believe in Steve, but I also know how the pommel horse is. There’s nobody that does the pommel horse who has not fallen in a competition.”
Falling off the pommel horse is par for the course, even for Stephen Nedoroscik. Mrs. Nedoroscik recalls watching her son fall off the pommel horse during the trials for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
“Steve was the one pegged to get the specialist position for that Olympic,” she said. “And everybody, including myself, thought he was going to get the spot. But on the very first day, he fell. He lost a full point and that was the end of his Olympic dreams for 2020.”
Despite his temporary agony of defeat, Stephen Nedoroscik soon felt the thrill of victory again when he became the first and still the only American to win the World Pommel Horse Championship in 2021.
And then, in 2024, the two Olympic bronze medals.
“The first thing that went through my head is he did it. He didn’t fall. He didn’t have bad mistakes. And that’s why I was jumping up and down,” Mrs. Nedoroscik said. “The second thing that was going through my head was me thanking God and all of the family members that are no longer with us that I felt was here with him, helping him along. And, then the third thing I thought of, all the hard work he put in as a young man and he’s dedicated himself to being the best on the pommel that he can be.”
Not only is Stephen Nedoroscik responsible for “pommel horse” being part of the popular vernacular, Mrs. Nedoroscik, a walking encyclopedia on her son’s chosen sport, marvels how he has brought increased awareness and interests for men’s gymnastics, which has been on a serious decline in recent years.
“If you go back to the ‘80s, there were 120 universities that had a men’s gymnastic team. Now, in Division One, there is only 12. And there’s four that are Division Three,” Mrs. Nedoroscik said. “(The University of) Illinois was talking about dropping their men’s program but the coach thinks that Steve single-handedly saved their program for next year. The Sterling Academy of Gymnastics in Sterling, Massachusetts, where Stephen trained when he was here, has been inundated with so many young men that want to join the team now…Everybody’s talking about how enrollment is huge right now and I think a lot of that is because of Stephen and the USA Men’s Gymnastics Team.”
Mrs. Nedoroscik said the Clark Kent comparison is something new for her son, but people making the Superman parallels aren’t.
“Interesting, people have called him ‘Superman’ for years. I had a coworker that always said, ‘He’s Superman.’ I always loved that nickname. But nobody ever called him Clark Kent. The Olympics was the first time,” she said. “Ironically, I was cleaning out the little bedroom that he has in Worcester and I found a card my parents gave him and it has this ‘Superman’ emblem on it and you opened it up and my mom had wrote, ‘You will always be my Superman, Steve’ and this is from when he just won the Junior Olympic pommel horse title in high school. So I took a picture of it (the card) and sent it to Steve and he thought it was pretty cool.”
Stephen Nedoroscik gave an Order of Ikkos Award to three-time Olympian gymnast and first-time Olympic coach Sam Mikulak. Created by the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, the award is presented by Team USA medal-winning athletes to a coach, mentor or other individual who has been instrumental in their success.
“Stephen has a lot of respect for Sam,” Mrs. Nedoroscik said. “He helped him out a lot, especially with his nerves and keeping him calm, so he doesn’t get too nerved up and your heartbeat goes up on the pommel horse. That’s never a good thing.”
Shortly before presenting his coach the medal, a U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee representative told Stephen that he won two Olympic medals, so he can choose two recipients for the Order of Ikkos Award.
He bestowed the second award to his parents.
“It was such an honor that he chose us. We certainly didn’t make him as talented as what he did. That was his hard work. But we did what we could to always go see him compete and get him to his practices for all those years,” Mrs. Nedoroscik said. “Steve obviously kept the bronze medals but they give you a certificate with it. And when we saw him in Paris, he said, ‘Mom, I want you and Dad to have these because I have the medals. You should at least get the certificates.’ We have those and we have the Ikkos Award and we’re going to do up a nice big display at the house.”
Since returning to Worcester, Mrs. Nedoroscik said she couldn’t tell you how many times she has watched the video of her son finishing off his 40-second pommel horse routine with a warm smile and a triumphant fist pump, followed by his teammates hugging him and hoisting him into the air.
While the image keeps playing in Mrs. Nedoroscik’s head even when she’s not watching the video, she sees it while remembering the words spoken by Tim Daggett, NBC’s gymnastics commentator at the Olympics: “That is the kind of joy that, at one point in your life, I hope everybody in the world gets to experience something like that.”
“That’s such a true statement and I don’t think any of those five young men will feel that way again. Even if they win a gold,” she said. “This was so special. They were such a great team. And they complemented each other.”
Mrs. Nedoroscik also said the team also had a plan.
“They didn’t look at anybody’s else’s score. They didn’t look at anybody’s else’s routine,” she said. “They didn’t even know how close it was until the coaches told them, if Steve did well, you’re going to hit that bronze. To me, it was the best moment, because Steve did what he came there to do. He did his job. And all of those who questioned the decision knew it was the right decision.”
Since his celebrity skyrocketed, Stephen Nedoroscik has been a guest on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” and “The Today Show,” both on NBC, and on Thursday, it was announced on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he is a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars” Season 33.
“I’m very excited for him. Never seen him dancing in his whole life. So it will be interesting,” Mrs. Nedoroscik said. “My daughters took dance and me and my husband are pretty good dancers so we think he’ll have that gene but we won’t know until they start to train him.”
And, Mrs. Nedoroscik acknowledges that his son has become a commodity.
“There’s all sorts of people looking at him to endorse their goods and his agent is looking at those right now,” she said. “He has had plenty of interest for him to represent an eyeglass company. There’s a car place that has reached out. I hope they invent all sorts of ways for him to pay off his student loans.”
Growing up in the Indian Lake area of Worcester, Stephen Nedoroscik lives in Sarasota, where he also trains. And, yes, he always had a knack for gymnastics, his mother said.
“That’s why we put him in gymnastics when he was 4 years old,” she said. “He was walking at 9 months old. He could climb the outside of the stairs all the way to the top at 1 year old. And shortly thereafter, he was shimmering up the poles in the cellar to get up to the ceiling.”
As for Stephen Nedoroscik’s homecoming to Worcester, his mother said it’s all up in the air, especially since he’s moving this week to Los Angeles so he can compete in “Dancing With the Stars.”
Mrs. Nedoroscik said that despite the overnight stardom, her son doesn’t let it go to his head.
“Steve loves having those medals,” she said. “He’s gotten a lot of accolades through the years and he’s just a special gymnast. And this is the first time everything blew up and I think a lot of that had to do with the timing of him being the last up during team finals and him being the only one to made it to an individual final event.”
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