From 'monkey boy' to 'horse guy', Stephen Nedoroscik is soaking up the limelight

PARIS (AP) — Stephen Nedoroscik is leaning into his newfound stardom as a geeky, bespectacled, Rubik’s Cube-solving video gamer who just won two bronze medals at the Paris Olympics.

“It’s still just surreal to me. I wake up in the morning, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m a two-time Olympic medalist!' It is so cool,” he told The Associated Press. With both medals hanging around his neck, he beamed and laughed as he marveled at his rise to fame and the attention his specialty in gymnastics is receiving.

The 25-year-old U.S. gymnast finished third in the pommel horse on Saturday, five days after helping the American men’s team earn bronze — its first Olympic medal in 16 years. Along the way, he’s captured the hearts of Olympics viewers with his endearing personality and nerdy tendencies.

Images and clips of Nedoroscik removing his glasses and centering himself before hopping on the pommel horse for a focused routine have gone viral. The memes and tweets have likened him to Clark Kent taking off his glasses and transforming into a hero.

“The memes are hilarious and I’m loving them all,” he said.

Internet fodder aside, Nedoroscik and his eyeglasses have brought visibility to an eye condition called coloboma, which occurs when part of the tissue that makes up the eye is missing. Fans have approached him thanking him for being a role model for children who need to wear glasses.

“Even just last week, for the first time, I met someone else who has the same eye condition as me," Nedoroscik said — a young boy whose mother said he really wanted to meet the gymnast. “It was also my first time meeting someone outside my family that has that disease. That was so cool to see that. And, you know, he was just so happy.”

Nedoroscik is relaxed and soaking up his moment now, but leading up to his routine, he was "doing my breathing exercises to keep my heart rate down. And like, the whole time I’m telling myself, ‘you’re excited, let’s go out there and show people like, this is a performance! Let’s go and have fun with it.’”

The pommel horse isn’t a specialty Americans typically excel in. But the Worcester, Massachusetts, native took to it early on after initially getting into gymnastics by climbing up ropes and walls everywhere he could. It earned him the nickname “monkey boy.”

“When I was real little – I’m talking like, basically before I could walk, I was already climbing up the walls in my house, scaring the baby sitters. So it didn’t take long for my parents to say, let’s put them in one of those preschool gyms,” he said.

He's gone from “monkey boy” to “horse guy” and says his background studying engineering at Penn State University is crucial to his success.

“Horse guy culture is totally a thing. A lot of horse specialists, you’ll see, are engineers or, you know, really smart people. They’re just kind of nerds. And honestly, kind of geeky people, they’re all just kind of fun,” he said.

Now that the pressure is off from the Games, Nedoroscik is hoping to actually enjoy Paris and food outside of the athlete's Olympic Village. First thing on the menu: Escargot.

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games