Olympic Gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik Embraces Clark Kent Comparison Memes: 'They’re Awesome' (2024)

Stephen Nedoroscik is having one super Summer Olympics, alright.

The 25-year-old gymnast helped Team USA take home an Olympic bronze medal on Monday, July 29 with his incredible pommel horse routine. But while his performance earned plenty of praise online, fans were equally vocal about the glasses-wearing Massachusetts native's resemblance to Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego.

Wrote one fan on X: "Stephen Nedoroscik is like Clark Kent, but when he takes off his glasses, he's Superman on the pommel horse."

"All I’m saying is we’ve never seen Stephen Nedoroscik and Clark Kent in the same room..." said another.

Even NBC's official Olympics account got in on the action, calling Nedoroscik "the Clark Kent of pommel horse" on X and sharing a side-by-side photo of him and of the late Christopher Reeve playing Kent in one of the Superman films.

Asked about the memes during an interview on the Today show on Tuesday, July 30, Nedoroscik embraced them, saying he's seen them and finds them humorous.

“I think they’re awesome," said Nedoroscik. "You know, representing the people that wear glasses well."

Hosts Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie then asked whether he has been stopped yet as he “walks down the streets” because of the memes.

“Oh, not quite yet,” he said — though Kotb and Guthrie teased it'd be happening soon enough.

Nedoroscik wears glasses because he has strabismus, a condition where one eye is turned in a direction that's different from the other. More commonly known as crossed eyes, it can lead to double vision — though, as Nedoroscik demonstrated in an August 2022 TikTok, he can alternate which eye is the dominant eye.

Asked on Today by Kotb, 59, and Guthrie, 52, about how he was able to carry out his pommel horse routine without the use of his glasses, Nedoroscik admitted he doesn't see.

“It’s not necessarily clear,” the gymnast said. “But the thing about pommel horse is if I keep [the glasses] on, they’re going to fly somewhere.”

Instead, Nedoroscik relies on his intuition. “When I go up on the pommel horse, it’s all about feeling the equipment,” he explained. “I don’t even really see when I’m doing my gymnastics. It’s all in the hands. I can feel everything.”

Following Nedoroscik's display on the pommel horse, which helped the U.S. men’s gymnastic team win their first Olympic medal in 16 years, the athelete spoke with reporters about what it felt like to have succeeded in garnering a high score on the apparatus.

“It was just the greatest moment of my life, I think,” the athlete told reporters, including PEOPLE, in Paris of acing his routine with a 14.866. “[I’m] so happy to have been there.”

The sportsman said it’d been a “really long day” leading up to his moment in the spotlight, but that he completed his breathing exercises to stay calm. He said he heard big cheers for Brody Malone and Paul Juda, who were set to go up before him, and knew that they were setting him up for success.

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“I kind of, in that moment, was like, ‘Alright, let’s run it back, then. Let’s go out there and do our thing,' " he said. “I have [coach] Sam Mikulak as just like, the greatest coach of all time. He’s up there, helping me keep the nerves in check. He knows exactly what to say to me.”

“So when we got that chalk bucket, he kind of just settled me down and said, ‘You’re ready for this.’ I went up there, did my routine and during that dismount, I was just like, already smiling,” he added.

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