Team USA's Pommel Horse Star Stephen Nedoroscik Reacts to Viral Fame, Gushes Over Girlfriend Tess McCracken
Stephen Nedoroscik has become quite the viral star on the internet lately!
The 25-year-old Team USA gymnast only competes in one event – pommel horse, and he helped bring the men’s gymnastics team to a bronze medal victory, their first metal in 16 years.
When he goes up to do his routine, he takes off his glasses, and many have made him a meme, with many viral posts about him being the Clark Kent of the men’s gymnastics team.
“Obsessed with this guy on the US men’s gymnastics team who’s only job is pommel horse, so he just sits there until he’s activated like a sleeper agent, whips off his glasses like Clark Kent and does a pommel horse routine that helps deliver the team its first medal in 16 years,” one post on X (formerly Twitter) reads. The post, at the time of this article, has over 31k retweets and 534k likes!
Now, Stephen is sharing his thoughts on going viral and while the internet loves him, he has one person who has always been cheering him on – his girlfriend Tess McCracken, who is also a gymnast.
Keep reading to find out more…
“It is awesome,” he tells ET of the love he’s been getting online. “I didn’t have my phone for a couple hours after the competition and I was like, ‘Ah, it’s gonna be so fun to see all my friends that have messaged me.’ [When] I looked at it, I was like, ‘What is going on?’”
“I mean, there’s so many memes out there about me being a sleeper agent who wakes up and turns into Clark Kent Superman on the pommel horse,” he added. “They are hilarious. It is such an honor to be in that position. I’m glad the people are enjoying the show that us men put out last night.”
Stephen also took a moment to gush over his girlfriend Tess, who at one point changed her bio on X to read, “Ms. Pommel Horse.”
“Tess is the absolute best,” he said. “First of all, [she is] beautiful. She is so smart. We met eight years ago at Penn State when we were both coming in as freshmen on our respective gymnastics teams. The first time I ever met her she was cracking her back. I thought it was kind of funny, so I introduced myself. We sat there and took an ADHD test or some baseline thing… Right away there was chemistry. It didn’t take long for us to start dating.”
“She’s just been my number one cheerleader for the last eight years. I’m so honored to have her.”
Stephen and the men’s gymnastics team may have already picked up a bronze metal in the team event, but he still has another round of competing in the pommel horse finals on Saturday (August 3) – Best of luck!