American pommel horse specialist Stephen Nedoroscik captured hearts at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris when he performed during the men’s gymnastics team final, and soon he’ll try to bring that new fan base over to the ballroom. In line with our recent Olympic suggestions, it was just announced that he will compete in the upcoming 33rd season of the amateur dance competition series “Dancing with the Stars.”
Nedoroscik was famously a specialist at these Olympic Games: his only event was the pommel horse, so he was added to the team solely to produce a high score on that apparatus. That put even more pressure on him; the last thing you want is to have just one job and not be able to deliver for your team. Further increasing the stress level, the pommel horse was the last apparatus for Team USA, and Nedoroscik was the very last gymnast to perform, so it all came down to him. But he delivered a mostly clean routine that was good enough to clinch the bronze medal for his team, who lifted the bespectacled wonder in the air in celebration. It was the first Olympic team medal for the USA since 2008, and as icing on the cake, Nedoroscik also won the bronze medal in the pommel horse event final.
Will his gymnastics skills translate to dance, though? Female gymnasts have a storied history on “DWTS,” with Shawn Johnson and Laurie Hernandez winning the Mirror Ball Trophy and Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, and Nastia Liukin finishing in the top four. But male gymnasts are untested on the show, and men’s gymnastics don’t have dance components the way women’s gymnastics do. The pommel horse, especially, is vastly different from a dance routine; keeping your body in a rigid, controlled position is the name of the game, so he’ll need to learn how to loosen his hips on the dance floor. But like other gymnasts he’ll have the strength, acrobatics and athletic stamina for the “DWTS” training regimen, which might give him an early advantage.
Are you excited to see more of the Olympics’ own Clark Kent? Will he be as much of a clutch performer as he was for Team USA? We’ll find out this fall.
