We finally know what Stephen Nedoroscik — better known to the internet as “Pommel Horse Guy” — was doing ahead of his event. The two-time medaling Olympian explained what his viral meme captured while stopping by “The Tonight Show.”
Nedoroscik first caught the internet’s attention on July 29. “Obsessed with this guy on the US men’s gymnastics team who’s only job is pommel horse [sic],” user @MegWritesBooks posted on X along with a picture of Nedoroscik seemingly asleep. That post saw over 584,000 likes, and the picture of Nedoroscik went on to spawn many more jokes in the following weeks.
It turns out that Nedoroscik was never sleeping after all. The Olympian told Fallon on Tuesday night that he was “visualizing” what he needed to do ahead of his event. On the day the picture was taken, the pommel horse event was the last of the day, meaning that Nedoroscik had a long day of waiting around.
“We get their earlier, then warm up and then march out to compete, so it was like five hours or so,” Nedoroscik said. “Finally when it got to horse, I needed to calm down. So all I’m doing there is I’m tilting my head back, and I’m doing my breathing exercises and visualizing a lot, like 100 times.”
Nedoroscik also watched a clip of his final event with Fallon. “That’s all that’s going on in my head — ‘Don’t mess this up,’” Nedoroscik said. The Olympian revealed that, heading into the final, he had to “literally turn my notifications off” so he wouldn’t get sucked into the many memes and jokes that were flooding his phone.
During the men’s artistic team all-around event, Nedoroscik scored 14.866, which helped Team USA win the bronze, its first medal in this particular event since 2008. He also won the bronze in the individual event for the pommel horse final, scoring 15.300 and becoming first individual to medal for the men’s team since the 2016 games.
Nedoroscik ended his time on “The Tonight Show” by delighting the audience once again. After Fallon scrambled a Rubik’s cube in real time, Nedoroscik solved the puzzle in under 16 seconds.
