Stephen Nedoroscik wins pommel horse gold at world championships
Three American gymnasts won medals during this weekend’s apparatus finals at the world championships in Kitakyushu, Japan. Stephen Nedoroscik, who just missed out on a spot on the Tokyo Olympic team, highlighted the U.S. team’s performance with a gold medal in the pommel horse final Saturday. Leanne Wong (bronze on floor) and Brody Malone (bronze on high bar) also finished their world championships on the medal podium.
A few months after staying home during the Summer Games, Nedoroscik had this opportunity and earned the United States’ first world championship title on pommel horse. Nedoroscik described his trip to Japan as a “really rough journey” that included lost passports and an illness.
This summer, Nedoroscik and Alec Yoder, another American pommel horse specialist, challenged for the United States’ lone Olympic spot that the national team staff planned to fill with a specialist who had medal potential on a specific apparatus. (The four-member team was made up of all-arounders, while this additional spot was for a gymnast who would compete as an individual in Tokyo.) Nedoroscik and Yoder, who have two of the best pommel horse sets in the world, earned similar scores at nationals. But then Yoder hit both days at the trials while Nedoroscik fell on the opening night. Yoder, 24, secured the Olympic berth, finishing sixth on the apparatus in Tokyo and then fifth at the world championships.
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Nedoroscik is the third American to win a world championships medal on this apparatus, joining Kurt Thomas (silver in 1979) and Alexander Artemev (bronze in 2006). With a 15.266, Nedoroscik, 22, finished more than three-tenths of a point ahead of silver medalists Weng Hao of China and Kazuma Kaya of Japan. Yoder was fewer than two-tenths away from medaling.
Nedoroscik’s gold, along with Malone’s bronze on high bar, comes after the U.S. men did not medal at this summer’s Olympics. Malone narrowly missed a medal on high bar in Tokyo, finishing fourth, but at this world championships, he secured the bronze with a 14.966 after edging Italy’s Carlo Macchini on a tiebreaker.
Yul Moldauer, a 25-year-old member of the Tokyo Olympic team, also had a strong showing in Kitakyushu, finishing fourth in the all-around, just a few tenths away from the bronze medal despite a fall on rings, and fifth on parallel bars. Four of the five American men in Tokyo were at the Olympics for the first time, and their solid performances at the world championships offer optimism as the United States starts its preparation for the 2024 Paris Games.
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On the women’s side, Wong (silver) and Kayla DiCello (bronze) earned medals in the all-around final. Wong, 18, followed her excellent showing Thursday with a bronze medal on floor, scoring a 13.833 during the final day of competition. She also competed in the beam final and finished fourth. DiCello, a 17-year-old who trains at Hill’s Gymnastics in Gaithersburg, Md., fell on beam (eighth place) and missed the podium by two-tenths on floor (fifth place). Wong and DiCello were alternates for the Tokyo Olympic team and had never competed at the world championships.
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