Olympic bronze medallist Stephen Nedoroscik's iconic glasses spark a wave of memes

Team USA’s bespectacled pommel horse specialist Stephen Nedoroscik took the Olympic Games Paris 2024 – and the internet – by storm Monday evening (29 July), delivering a clutch effort on the pommel horse as the final American to compete.

His 14.866 sealed the U.S.’s bronze medal, their first men’s team medal at the Games since Beijing 2008, and inspired seemingly endless memes, including one of his last name as an eye chart.

The 25 year-old had to wait almost three hours until it was his turn to take the pommel horse on Monday evening.

"It was a very long day as you can imagine," he told Olympics.com.

"But watching these guys go through the first four events and absolutely killing it, I went to the back gym and I was ready to go."

"In that moment, I was just like, if I hit this routine, we're on that podium.

And going for that dismount, I was smiling on my way down. I knew in that moment that we did it."

In the final in Paris, Nedoroscik ditched his glasses before performing his routine, but the 25-year-old has previously competed wearing glasses or goggles including during the 2022 World Championships.

“I haven’t worn them in a while,” the 2021 world pommel horse champ said in late June after making the U.S. squad for the Olympics. “Nothing’s really intentional. Sometimes, I think about things that I do for competition that are kind of silly… sometimes, I like to push the boundaries.

“The goggles, of course, that’s something that I always throw on now and then, definitely a staple of mine,” he continued, “I haven’t really been using [them] recently, no reason to it, really, I just haven’t really felt like it.”

Nedoroscik is in good company with the 2017 and 2022 world all-around champions Morgan Hurd of the United States and Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, respectively, both often spotted in the competition hall wearing glasses.

Throughout her competitive career, Hurd, who is currently part of the University of Florida squad, has competed nearly all her routines in glasses, while Andrade has taken a different path.

"I tried to use contact lenses but I didn't like it because I started to see [the beam] really well, and I don't want to see it so well,” she told Olympics.com at the 2023 Worlds.

The balance beam isn’t the only event out of focus for the history-making Brazilian.

"I don't see it," Andrade said of the vault where she is world and Olympic champion with a laugh. "When I get in on the springboard, I see it."