At the Paris Olympics, Stephen Nedoroscik found himself at the crossroads of history. But he had two really good omens on both mornings before he competed in individual and team events. On the morning of the team final, he’d solved a Rubik’s cube in under ten seconds, indicating it as a “good omen” in a post to his Instagram. On the individual final event, he did it again: A “good omen pt. 2,” and seven hours later, he won his second bronze Olympic medal.

USA was on the verge of something special in the men’s gymnastics team final, with three crucial pommel horse routines standing between them and an Olympic medal. And guess who had to step up? None other than Nedoroscik himself, the “Clark Kent” of gymnastics, minus the cape. The pommel horse specialist who delivered a clinical performance landed a score that was the highest for any event among the U.S. male gymnasts during the team match (14.866), ending Team USA’s 16-year medal drought in the men’s team event.

Fans were treated to a hero in action. But hold on—according to his mom, Cheryl Nedoroscik, Stephen isn’t exactly a superhero. “He has failures,” she said, something Clark Kent isn’t exactly known for. So, how did he pull it off? What’s the secret behind that jaw-dropping performance?

Well, Cheryl’s got the answer. On the Spotify podcast Got It From My Momma, she shared, “That’s why you see me shaking. When he’s ready to compete, it’s not that I don’t think he can do it, I know he can do it but even if you’re the best, there are days when you’re gonna make a mistake. And Stephen has those mistakes just like any other gymnast. 

“I think Brody put it best. When you have a bad day, you need to have a short memory. Because you need to wipe that dirt off your knees and get right back up on that apparatus the next day and pretend that you hit every time. I guess that’s a good way of putting it.

“Who doesn’t wanna hit every time? It’s just things happen and things that are out of your control or you’re moving a little too fast and your hand are two inches off. The one thing Stephen honed in on is: trying not to fall off that pommel horse. It might mean that you might miss one of the skills that was in his routine… and just trying to remain on the pommel. He might lose three-tenths and five-tenths of a point but it is better than losing one-and-a-half points…

“The older he gets, and actually all the gymnasts you watch, the older they get, the more they can hone in on how not to mess up. They might miss a skill here and there but they know the goal in the end of the 45 seconds is to do the most perfect you can do with what has happened.   

It was the first time since 2008 that the American men’s gymnastics team had a chance at an Olympic medal. But to land the victory, Stephen Nedoroscik had to topple his personal barriers—not just the underdog tag but the physical constraints. In Paris, Nedoroscik admitted to suffering from two vision conditions: strabismus and coloboma. The conditions have made his eyesight quite limited. 

In his conversation with Today, the 25-year-old cleared the air regarding the issues he faced because of the two aforementioned conditions. “When I go up on the pommel horse, it’s all about feeling the equipment. I don’t even really see when I’m doing my gymnastics. It’s all in the hands — I can feel everything.” 

Comeback kid Brody Malone and Olympic debutant Stephen Nedoroscik were training for the Olympics together for two years at EVO Gymnastics. Malone spent the last 16 months before the Games defying the odds to regain his top form after what many thought would be a career-ending right knee injury. But at the team qualifying, Malone couldn’t deliver as he fell twice from the high bar and once on the pommel horse. The result? A lost opportunity to compete in the all-around final. With no excuses and only regrets, he walked over to his teammates to apologize.

Brody Malone made a deal with his team going into their last rotations

For a gymnast, who has been in the field long enough to know that progress in a field like gymnastics can’t ever be linear, he knew he had more to offer despite not qualifying. After all, gymnastics is a team sport. And as a standard-bearer of the men’s program three years ago, going into the final rotations of the team final, he had just one piece of advice for his teammates.

“Going into our last rotations, pommel horse, we kind of knew we were in a good spot, but we didn’t know for sure,” Brody said. “We kind of made a deal beforehand that we weren’t going to watch the scores. We were just going to kind of stay in our bubble.”

“But I mean, we had a pretty good feeling going into pommel horse because we had hit all of our routines so far. So, we just had three more to hit. After Stephen Nedoroscik’s routine, we kind of knew that we had sealed the deal and you could tell we just started celebrating right away; it was awesome,” he said.

And the 25-year-old followed Malone’s advice to the tee, even in his individual pommel horse event. Choosing not to watch any competitors or look at any scores before his turn, he didn’t consider a difficult routine but decided to perform his usual routine, no matter the circumstances. It certainly paid off as before he could even realize what position he finished, gold medalist representing Ireland, Rhy McClenaghan jumped in to hug him.

Earning medals in one Olympic edition is not sufficient for Stephen. His sights are firmly set on LA 2028. Sure, by then he’ll be 29, but Cheryl’s maxim on older gymnasts holds strong: “They might miss a skill here and there, but they know the goal at the end of the 45 seconds is to do the most perfect you can do with what has happened.” That mindset is what keeps Stephen going, and honestly, it’s hard not to be inspired by that!