Olympic gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik will proudly represent the United States and his hometown of Worcester when competition gets underway at the Paris Games Saturday.
NBC and Peacock will televise the men’s gymnastics qualification round at 5 a.m.
The 25-year-old Nedoroscik, who got his start at Sterling Academy of Gymnastics, earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic team with a splendid performance on the pommel horse, his signature apparatus, at last month’s U.S. Olympic Men’s Gymnastics Trials in Minneapolis.
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Nedoroscik is one of three Central Mass. athletes to compete at the Olympics this summer. Worcester's Aaron Ortiz will complete in Muay Thai, which is being held as a demonstration sport this year, and Holden's Aisyah Rafa'ee will compete for Singapore in women's single scull rowing.
Nedoroscik is the first American gymnast to make the Olympic team as a single-event specialist.
Nedoroscik and teammates Frederick Richard, who is from Stoughton, Brody Malone, Paul Juda and Asher Hong are seeking to become the first men’s U.S. Olympic gymnastics team to win a medal since 2008.
“We are all very excited and looking forward to the opportunity ahead of us,” Nedoroscik told the T&G following the U.S. Olympic trials. “A team medal is the goal. With the talent that’s on this team, this could be the Olympic Games we medal in again.”
The men’s team final is at 11:30 a.m. Monday on NBC and Peacock.
Nedoroscik, meanwhile, will try to become the first American to win an Olympic medal in the pommel horse since Alexander Naddour took home bronze at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. Peter Vidmar was the last member of Team USA to win gold in the event, at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
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The men’s pommel horse final is at 11 a.m. Aug. 3 on Peacock.
Nedoroscik, a 2016 Worcester Tech graduate, was an All-American at Penn State, where he earned his degree in electrical engineering in 2020.
Over the last eight years, Nedoroscik has won two NCAA titles, four national championships and a world title, in 2021, on the pommel horse.
After capturing the pommel horse national title at the 2021 U.S. Gymnastics Championships, Nedoroscik came up short in his quest to make that year’s Olympic team (the Games were pushed back a year because of COVID).
He used the setback as motivation for the World Championships a few months later and turned in a gold-medal performance to become the first U.S. gymnast to win a pommel horse world championship.
Missing out on the last Olympic Games continued to motivate Nedoroscik this time around.
Nedoroscik led the pommel horse event after the first night of U.S. men’s trials competition and, after a superb routine in the final, stuck his dismount to solidify his spot on the U.S. Olympic team and make his dream come true.
After graduating from Penn State, Nedoroscik continued to train there and live near campus. About 1½ years ago, he moved to Sarasota, where he and other national team members train at EVO Gymnastics.
Contact Jennifer Toland at jennifer.toland@telegram.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @JenTolandTG.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester native, gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik to vie for Olympic gold in Paris
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