Stephen Nedoroscik Is The Bespectacled King Of The Pommel Horse

The U.S. men took home their first medal in team gymnastics since the 2008 Games on Monday, finishing behind Japan and China to nab the bronze just ahead of Great Britain and Ukraine. That's a great result, especially as the team had previously finished a disappointing fifth three times in a row. Making the result all the sweeter was the fact that it was obtained in dramatic fashion by a fringe member of the team who just happens to look like Peter Parker.

For two hours, through five rotations, Stephen Nedoroscik sat there and watched as his team inched closer and closer to the podium. Nedoroscik did not participate in any of the first five routines, because he is a pommel horse specialist. Since pommel horse was the last routine on the Americans' rotation, Nedoroscik just had to sit there and fret, taking his glasses off and putting them back on over and over again. And then, his time came. The U.S. was in medal contention entering its final rotation, and Nedoroscik was called on to do the one thing he was brought to Paris to do: get on that damn horse and whip it.

Nedoroscik's big moment was special, and reminiscent of a badass closer being called on to wrap up Game 7 of a playoff series, only in this case the badass was a guy with an electrical engineering degree and some snazzy spectacles. The glasses played a big role in the whole competition—he would take them off, do a little warm-up on the horse to stay warm, then instantly pop them back on. Every time one of his teammates finished a routine—Frederick Richards nailing every landing on the floor, Asher Hong catapulting through the air off the vault—they celebrated as a group, though left Nedoroscik to his own devices. Which is to say: his glasses.

The NBC broadcast featured a little timer in the corner counting down the minutes until Nedoroscik's turn, and he seemed to be feeling the pressure. That pressure increased shortly before he got on the horse, when a Chinese gymnast fell on the high bar. All of a sudden, he was in position to help his team potentially win a silver medal, not just step onto the podium. He did his job, earning a 14.866, only for China’s Zhang Boheng to do just enough on the bar to claw back the silver.

It's rare for such a specialist to be in the squad for a team final. Most gymnasts compete in at least two events. Meanwhile Nedoroscik has only one job, which makes the stakes that much higher: If he fumbles, not only will he hurt his team's chances, he will show himself to have been unworthy of the team selection. "What it comes down to is that his scores on pommel horse are so much higher than everybody else on that one event that he adds a tremendous amount of potential score," said NBC Sports gymnastics analyst and gold medalist Tim Daggett. He adds potential score, and only in the one event, which heaps even more pressure onto him. No wonder he held his glasses aloft after finishing his routine.