By now you’ve probably figured out that Pommel Horse Guy isn’t some obscure species of centaur, but Stephen Nedoroscik, the gymnast who has emerged as a main character of the Paris Olympic Games after helping USA clinch the bronze in the men’s gymnastics team final Monday night. The 25-year-old with an electrical engineering degree and glasses that he slips off when called on to execute superhuman feats is giving the internet major Clark Kent vibes. He can also solve a Rubik’s cube in under 10 seconds.
But his most unique talent is that he’s an apparatus specialist—unlike his teammates who perform in multiple events, Nedoroscik competes solely in the pommel horse. He’s that good. On Saturday, he’ll be competing for another medal in the men’s individual finals—and for the eyes of the world (or at least the extremely online) will be watching.
But with great power comes great responsibility. On Monday, that meant Nedooroscik had to sit quietly on the sidelines for almost three hours, at times with his head back and eyes closed (much to the internet’s glee) while his teammates went through multiple rotations. When his number was finally called, Nedooroscik was ready. His teammates screamed “Let’s go!” from the sidelines as Nedoroscik delivered a clean, 35-second routine of mesmerizing scissor single-leg swings and double-leg circles that looked like an especially elegant breakdance. As he dismounted, a smile crept across his mouth before his feet even touched the mat.
The bronze ends a 16-year medal drought for US men’s gymnastics—but judging from how his teammates hoisted up Nedoroscik as they ecstatically bounced up and down, they might as well have won all the golds. It was the kind of dopamine-inducing moment people come to the Olympics to see, rekindling faith in camaraderie and perseverance. Given America’s fractured politics, viewers can marvel at what we can achieve with true collaboration—and the pommel horse.
The pommel horse goes way back, as in: it’s literally ancient. While early Greek civilization invented the Olympics, it was the Romans who invented a wooden horse soldiers could use to practice mounting and dismounting. The “pommels,” or the handles the gymnasts grip, derive their name from the Old French word for “rounded knob” and share the same root as “pomme,” the French word for apple. It wasn’t until around 1908, some twelve years after the modern Olympics began, that the “vaulting horse” finally became called the “pommel horse.”
Only men’s gymnastics teams compete in this event. Female gymnasts compete in four apparatuses: floor, vault, beam, and uneven bars. Men also do floor and vault, but diverge on the remaining four events: parallel bars, horizontal bar, rings, and pommel horse. And while the US women’s team is clearly dominating on their own apparatuses—they won gold in the team final on Tuesday by nearly six points!—it would be awesome to see Simone Biles take on the pommel horse one day, just to see what she can do.