The parents of U.S. Olympic gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik spoke out after their son went viral for his impeccable pommel horse performance Monday in Paris, winning the team its first medal in 16 years.
Nedoroscik was dubbed the “Clark Kent” of men’s gymnastics on social media after removing his glasses to nail his only routine of the competition, securing the bronze medal for Team USA.
His mother, Cheryl, joined “Fox & Friends” alongside her husband, John, to discuss how the Olympian competes with strabismus – a genetic condition which hinders his ability to see clearly.
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“His pupils don’t constrict. They stay dilated all the time, and he has a section of his iris that’s completely missing,” Cheryl said on Wednesday. “It’s just pupil all the way to the edge, and with that… you can have sight issues. It doesn’t necessarily mean you will, but in his case, as well as I, we always had glasses. But we’re very, very sensitive to light, and some people actually are blind in the eyes, when they have coloboma, but fortunately, ours we can see.”
PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 29: Stephen Nedoroscik of United States on Pommel Horse during the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Team Final on day three of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on July 29, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Daniela Porcelli/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
“But when he competes he really does not use his eyes to do the pommels,” she continued. “It’s basically he knows where his hands belong, and he gets the positioning down right, so he can nail routines like he did the other night.”
U.S. broadcast cameras followed Nedoroscik for over two hours on the sidelines as he mentally prepared for his only event of the competition and the team’s final rotation of the evening. Teammates Frederick Richard, Brody Malone, Paul Juda and Asher Hong fired up the crowd and fans watching at home as they nailed routines in the competition’s other five rotations.
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Nedoroscik, a pommel horse specialist selected to Team USA for his dominance in event, stepped up to the mat and scored an impressive 15.166, securing the team’s first Olympic medal since 2008.
“It went really well today, I handled the nerves very well,” he said afterward. “I worked my whole life up to those 45 seconds.”
Co-host Brian Kilmeade asked the pair how their son came to specialize in a single event.
“He was recruited in college for his pommel horse skills,” Cheryl responded. “And when Randy took him – Randy is the coach of Penn State men’s gymnastics – he decided he was just going to have them be a specialist on the pommels. He still trains the other events for conditioning, but not to compete.”
PARIS, FRANCE: JULY 29: The United States team of Asher Hong, Paul Juda, Brody Malone, Stephen Nedoroscik and Frederick Richard on the podium with their bronze medals during the Artistic Gymnastics Men’s Team Final at the Bercy Arena during the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games on July 29th, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)
Aside from being one of the world’s best at pommel horse, the 25-year-old has an electrical engineering degree and can solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than 10 seconds.
“He got to this point because he works hard at everything he does,” John said. “He studied hard. He always loved puzzles. He’s been doing the Rubik’s Cubes years.”
The Olympian, who became the first U.S. gymnast to win a world championship gold medal on pommel horse in 2021, competes again for Olympic gold in the discipline on Saturday.
Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
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