U.S. Men’s Gymnastics Team Breaks 16-year Medal Drought With Clutch Last Routine
Contributor – Ryan Straub
As the Men’s Gymnastics team final carried on in Paris on Monday, the amount of stress on the athletes was exponential. Pressure can be defined as “the feeling of stressful urgency caused by the necessity of doing or achieving something, especially with limited time.” The slightest of margins, whether it be a small slip or a brief fall, could be the difference between a gold, silver, bronze, or not even on the podium at all.
This pressure eventually fell solely on the shoulders of Stephen Nedoroscik. Nedoroscik, who specializes in the pommel horse, just had to pull off a mistake-free routine for his team to rejoice. And that he did, clinching the squad’s first Olympic Medal in the team final since Beijing 2008.
In Gymnastics, Near-Perfection is Needed
After an extremely disappointing qualifying round on Saturday that saw the U.S. gymnastics team place 5th, with the majority of the mistakes coming from the only returning Olympian Brody Malone, the team knew they needed to be almost perfect in order to be on the podium when it was all said and done. “You just got to forget about it,” Malone said Monday. “It was over and done with.”
Alongside Nedoroscik and Malone were Asher Hong, Paul Juda, and Frederick Richard. They were all synchronous to self-critique their performances on Saturday, a major reason for their turnaround performance in the final. Richard even elected to use his more challenging horizontal bar routine on Monday instead of performing it in an event final. “In our team meeting, the coaches said, ‘You look amazing, do it,” he recounted. “And it paid off.”
Atop the podium was Japan taking the gold and China taking the silver, with the Americans fighting off Great Britain and Ukraine for the bronze. The Japanese and the Chinese being almost shoo-ins to medal from the start makes this medal that much more triumphant for the U.S.
More to Come in Los Angeles 2028?
The program’s long-term plan now has its sights set even higher, on the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 2028. It will be the first summer games held on American soil since Atlanta 1996, as the team looks to improve upon their performance in Paris.
In an interview with NPR, Brett McClure, the men’s gymnastics high-performance director stated “We’re trending in the right direction.” “If we want to get better and push for first place in L.A., then this is going to be extremely motivating.”
“I think there’s still a lot to be done,” said Sam Mikulak, a three-time Olympian gymnast who is now a coach. “I’m sure they were up on that podium in third place and they were so happy, so grateful. But I think they were like, ‘Man, it would be cool if we had our national anthem playing too.’ So I think that bodes well for the future.”
For the time being, the celebrations must be short-lived. The search for additional gymnastics medals continues with Richard and Juda set to participate in the men’s individual all-around final on Wednesday. Nedoroscik competes in the pommel horse final on Saturday.
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