By: Isabelle Wang

Men’s gymnastics has 6 events, floor, rings, pommel horse, vault, horizontal/high bars, and parallel bars. Stephen Nedoroscik is the pommel horse specialist for the 2024 Paris Olympics from Team USA. He was the last person to compete for his team and had to wait more than two hours before getting on the mat. While China was leading after five events, the team fell on the horizontal bars. Nedoroscik was therefore in a position to earn Team USA a medal.

Nedoroscik finished his routine almost flawlessly with only minor mistakes. Team USA watched the scoreboard excitedly and waited for Nedoroscik’s score, which turned out to be 14.866. Scoring in men’s gymnastics includes two key components, the difficulty score and the execution score. The difficulty score starts at zero and is earned by meeting composition requirements and executing skills with increasing difficulty and is not explicitly stated as being out of a specific number but instead as a cumulative total. The execution score is out of 10 points and assesses the athlete’s execution and artistry of their routine.

The last competitor, Zhang Boheng, was from China, and his horizontal bar routine was enough for China to earn a silver medal behind Japan. The U.S. managed to get a bronze, its first team medal, in 16 years.
Nedoroscik’s performance was not an isolated achievement, but the result of a four-year journey for the U.S. Gymnastics team. After a disappointing fifth-place finish in Tokyo, USA Gymnastics coaches restructured their approach, focusing on increasing the difficulty of their routines. By the time of the Paris meet, the team had significantly improved their routines, overcoming a difference of six points from the highest competitors.

The U.S. team demonstrated remarkable consistency during the competition, executing nearly all of their 18 routines with precision. Minor errors aside, their performance was exceptional. Asher Hong’s nearly flawless vault helped propel the U.S. from fifth to first place after two events, and Frederick Richards’ stunning floor routine kept the team in contention. Paul Juda, having previously delivered an amazing performance in qualifying, continued delivering solid scores, while Nedoroscik also performed very well.

Among the athletes, Brody Malone’s story was particularly inspiring. Less than a year prior, Malone faced a severe leg injury that nearly kept him from competing. Despite struggling during qualifications and dealing with ongoing physical challenges, Malone persevered and performed phenomenally.