U.S. men’s gymnastics win bronze after Stephen Nedoroscik’s Olympic routine

He’s a specialist, here because he excels on a single event: pommel horse, an apparatus so fickle that one misstep can derail an athlete’s rhythm and send the routine into disarray. And in the waning moments of Monday’s final, Nedoroscik had to deliver for the United States to clinch its first Olympic team medal since 2008. He leaped onto the apparatus and began swinging, floating through each element and maneuvering his hands with precision. The other gymnasts watched with their arms around each other, and as soon as he dismounted, the celebration began.

Nedoroscik’s teammates lifted him off the ground, and he said, “Man, that’s a memory that’s going to live in my head forever.”

Nedoroscik had done more than enough to clinch the bronze medal, with the Americans’ score of 257.793 landing them firmly in bronze medal position behind powerhouses Japan and China. In a testament to how much the Americans have progressed since their distant fifth-place finish at the Tokyo Games three years ago, the U.S. men finished less than two points behind Japan, the gold medalist with a 259.594.

The other top teams had errors; the Americans were the exception. China, the silver medalist, entered the final rotation with a significant lead, but Su Weide fell twice during his high bar routine, sending his team tumbling to second. Meanwhile, the U.S. men hit all 18 routines of the evening, Nedoroscik’s key 40-second performance an exclamation point on what his teammates had done throughout the meet. They had struggled through the qualifying round, but when it counted, the U.S. men were at their best.

“We knew what we were capable of and believed — believed in each other, believed in ourselves and believed that we could have a great day today,” U.S. high performance director Brett McClure said.

Entering the last rotation, the United States sat in third with nearly a two-point buffer ahead of Ukraine in fourth. The cushion provided some reassurance, but the final three pommel horse sets would dictate whether the United States would leave with a long-awaited Olympic team medal.

Paul Juda, who has been the steadiest member of the team at these Games, began the rotation with a solid set. Brody Malone, the lone returning Olympian on the squad, had a disastrous outing in the qualifying round, falling on pommel horse and struggling on other events. But his rebound performance continued to the final event, and his routine set up Nedoroscik to finish the job.

Throughout the evening, Nedoroscik said, he visualized his routine about 100 times. Late in the competition, he left the arena and practiced briefly in the warmup gym. Then, finally, he saluted the judges and performed. After Nedoroscik landed and placed his glasses back onto his face, he was swarmed by his teammates and coaches. The hugs seemed never-ending. For the Americans, a breakthrough bronze felt as meaningful as a gold.

The U.S. men won the bronze at last fall’s world championships, their first medal in nearly a decade, which sparked optimism that this year they could end the Olympic drought. The absence of Russia, which isn’t allowed to have teams compete here because of its invasion of Ukraine, created an opening on the podium.

But when the United States landed in fifth after the qualifying round — behind Britain and Ukraine in addition to China and Japan — the team’s medal hopes seemed bleak. The Americans were more than three points behind third-place Britain, in large part because of Malone’s mistakes.

The United States couldn’t lean on simple routines with the hope that clean execution would clinch a medal. The Americans needed to maximize difficulty scores and perform well. One routine after another in the final, they did just that.

The U.S. men delivered a stellar vault rotation, starting with Juda’s perfectly stuck 2½-twisting vault that led to so much excitement he chasséd down the podium afterward. When Malone followed with another stuck vault, “U-S-A” chants filled the arena. And then Asher Hong capped the lineup with a strong vault, the most difficult one on the team. As they rotated to their third event, the chants began again — louder and for longer this time — and the U.S. gymnasts fist-pumped along in acknowledgment.

“I think vault 100 percent set the mood,” said Sam Mikulak, a three-time Olympian who coaches Nedoroscik and Malone. “From there, it was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is fun.’”

Nearly every routine was similar to or better than in the team’s previous outing, and Malone led that turnaround. After coming off the high bar twice Saturday, he worked through his difficult set this time without any trouble. Just before Malone, Frederick Richard soared through a highflying routine as his teammates leaped in response to each successful release element and again after his excellent stuck dismount. On that apparatus alone, the Americans improved their score by more than two points. And eventually, they headed to pommel horse with a medal on the line.

Nedoroscik wasn’t new to this type of moment. He earned a spot on the 2022 world championships team, but in the team final, he failed to perform to his potential. When Syque Caesar began coaching Nedoroscik soon after, he wanted to approach Nedoroscik’s past mistakes head-on.

“We had to peel the layers,” Caesar said, explaining how he worked to pinpoint what exactly went wrong for Nedoroscik in some big moments.

Nedoroscik won the gold medal at the world championships in 2021, but there was work to do in developing consistency. Caesar said it took more than a year to figure out what worked best for Nedoroscik, adding mental cues that helped him deal with varying competitive circumstances. Caesar added “curveballs” to practice. One example, Caesar explained a few weeks ago, was having Nedoroscik sit for two hours and then hit a routine — a similar scenario to what the 25-year-old faced Monday.

“He’s embraced the pressure and embraced the curveballs,” Caesar said.

In the past, if Caesar upped the pressure in practice, Nedoroscik’s response would be: “You don’t need to put more pressure on me. I already put pressure on myself.” But now he doesn’t try to minimize the weight of the moment. Did he feel the pressure in the team final? “Oh, yeah,” he said. But he knows he can handle it. And here, in the biggest moment of his career, he proved it.