2025 could be another banner year for Stephen Nedoroscik’s career. With the 2025 World Gymnastics Championships coming to Jakarta in October, a potential opportunity lies ahead for him to write another winning script. But, amid moments of anticipation, his mind seldom wavers back to the memories of the 2021 Worlds, as it did recently.

Taking to his Instagram, Stephen Nedoroscik added a story that comprised USA Gymnastics’ recent throwback post related to the 2021 World Championships. With a carousel of 10 images, the post showed Team USA’s individual competitors on different apparatuses, rekindling the event’s memories for a hot minute. And since the 2025 Worlds is once again slated to be an individual competition for it falls right after the Olympic year, the caption asked the audience to name the gymnasts they are hoping to see performing for America next year.

Naturally, Nedoroscik chose slide 4, his own image from a joyous moment after his Pommel Horse routine, as he added the post to his story. Moreover, he supplemented it with a note, “Throwback the most successful, and chaotic, meet of my life.” Well, Stephen Nedoroscik’s 2021 Worlds Pommel Horse gold was a historic one for the USA since it was the nation’s first gold ever on this apparatus at a World Championship stage. Plus, it broke the unlucky streak that America’s male artistic gymnasts had been going through, not having won a gold medal since 2011.

However, it was not all that easy. Nedoroscik’s victory came after a series of difficulties, which perhaps explains his description of it being the most ‘chaotic’ as well. The win that he would often recall as ‘unforgettable’ once looked impossible, for Stephen Nedoroscik had broken a bone in his left hand while competing at the 2021 World Championships. Despite that, he did not falter from his goal and bagged the title, even though he had to wear a cast for the next few weeks and take a hiatus from the sport till May 2022.

This wasn’t the only obstacle he had to circumvent. Right before the 2021 Worlds, during the U.S. Trials, which were a lead-up to the event, he had struggled from another injury. This time, it was his elbow that restricted him from training for 9 days before the Trials. Also, that very year, he was diagnosed with vocal cord dysfunction too. Thus, the conditions were hardly ideal when it came to his health, for there was a constant back and forth between illness and recovery. But, he still managed to break the mold with his performance.

While health conditions were not ideal, let’s not forget that this 2021 competition came at a time when Stephen’s Tokyo Olympics loss made the already high-pressure stage of the Worlds stage look a little too nervy. He had been the pommel horse favorite, but Tokyo was a job undone after his hand slipped on the apparatus at the Trials, leading to his golden dream being pushed back by 3 years.

However, conditions have changed drastically today. Stephen Nedoroscik is now not just a 2x Olympic medalist but a celebrity in the making, after his Dancing With The Stars debut this year. But, while he might have starry dreams in his eyes for the 2025 World Championships, his expectations about the sport’s future may have plummeted to an all-time low.

Stephen Nedoroscik’s DWTS-Gymnastics collaboration had a reason

Recently, DWTS held a ‘Dedication Night’ where Team USA’s Clark Kent was seen getting back on the pommel horse. Only this time, amid spotlights and a sparkly blue costume, which was far from anything that his usual singlet looked like. However, he had to give a tribute to his sport, and that he did.

But the reason Stephen Nedoroscik cited was, “Well, it wasn’t just my Olympic team. I dedicated it to the whole sport of men gymnastics. I wanted to make that a point because the sport itself has been slowly dying throughout, you know, the last couple of decades. And I want to make sure this sport is not only surviving but thriving.”

Well, since he was around years old, gymnastics has never disappeared too far away from his horizon. In fact, Stephen Nedoroscik confesses that a lot of his life skills, like discipline and goal-setting, have come from the sport. It made him the man he is today. However, the fact that the NCAA has been sidelining the sport has not sat well with the 25-year-old.

When Ohio State decided to withdraw scholarships for male gymnasts, Stephen Nedoroscik could hardly be silent. “With the success of current and former NCAA gymnasts at the Olympics you’d think NCAA programs would be excited for the upcoming season, not stripping away opportunities,” he was clearly left astonished by the decision. Today, with just 12 NCAA programs, it’s not too difficult to comprehend the downward progression in the graph. In such a scenario, how would the 2025 World Championships turn out for the USA? Share what you think below!