Stephen Nedoroscik, the ‘Pommel Horse Guy’ who charmed the Internet, wins bronze : NPR

PARIS — Stephen Nedoroscik, the American gymnast who has become lovingly known as “Pommel Horse Guy” on social media, won the bronze medal at the Olympic pommel horse final.

Five days after his pommel horse routine clinched a historic medal for the U.S. in the team all-around event, Nedoroscik returned to Paris’s Bercy Arena to compete in the individual event.

Before he began, he removed his Clark Kent-style glasses that endeared him to so many viewers, and he hooked them over the rim of the chalk bowl. Then came his routine, some 40 seconds of mesmerizing swings of his legs in circles around the horse, with one-handed twirls on the handles and walks up and down the apparatus.

During the qualification round last weekend, Nedoroscik had tied for highest score, lifting hopes of a gold medal in the final. But some competitors performed more challenging routines on Saturday, including Ireland’s Rhys McClenaghan, who won the event at last year’s World Championships and again took the gold on Saturday, with a score of 15.533. Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan won silver.

In the end, Nedoroscik’s score of 15.3 won him bronze. Nedoroscik was the only American male gymnast to qualify for an apparatus final.

Nedoroscik, a pommel horse specialist, was selected to the U.S. men’s gymnastics team to bolster what team officials viewed as a relative weakness for the rest of the team.

In the team final, the U.S. had been assigned to the pommel horse for its very last rotation. And Nedoroscik went last — meaning it was his routine that clinched the bronze for the U.S., the first team medal the country had won in 16 years.

But until then, he had to wait as his teammates performed on the other five events; in its broadcast, NBC even included a countdown timer, showing the hour-and-then-some that Nedoroscik had sit on the sidelines. “I frame that in my head as a positive, like I can be the exclamation point,” rather than let the pressure build, he said.

His calm demeanor during the wait captured the attention of social media users. So too did the act of taking off his glasses and hanging them on the chalk stand while he performed his routine. (“It’s all feeling,” he told reporters afterward. “I see with my hands.”)

When he landed his routine, his teammates burst into joyous cheers and lifted him onto their shoulders. “It was just the greatest moment of my life, I think, and I am so happy to have been there,” Nedoroscik said.