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Team USA's success boosts gymnastics back home [1]
['Dave Reynolds']
Date: 2024-08-14 20:07:25+00:00
U.S. gymnasts’ medal-winning performances in Paris are boosting the sport back home, including among those traditionally less apt to participate in gymnastics.
On July 30, the day Simone Biles led the U.S. women’s team to a gold medal, 35 million viewers watched NBC and Peacock’s Olympic coverage. A day earlier, Stephen Nedoroscik’s pommel horse routine went viral on social media. His routine clinched a bronze medal too — the U.S. men’s first gymnastics team medal since 2008.
Tanya Berenson, operations director at Beverly Hills Gymnastics Center, says the success of U.S. Olympians is drawing people to the sport and that with the success of the men’s team, she saw an immediate influx of boys trying to get into classes.
A gym in Virginia also reported a dramatic increase in boys interested in taking gymnastics classes after Nedoroscik’s pommel horse performance. The dark-haired 25-year-old removes his glasses before each routine, a transformation that fans likened to Clark Kent becoming Superman.
ICE IN HIS VEINS 🥶 Stephen Nedoroscik is your Olympic bronze medalist on pommel horse! 📺: @NBCOlympics & @peacock #ParisOlympics
pic.twitter.com/lwDN2EZuR0 — Team USA (@TeamUSA) August 3, 2024
Only 1,000 boys competed in gymnastics at U.S. high schools during a recent academic year, compared to 16,000 girls, according to the data collection site Statista.
While Nedoroscik, who has a condition that affects his vision, may seem an unlikely winner of two bronze medals, he isn’t the only one redefining who can succeed in gymnastics. At 27, Biles won four medals in Paris, becoming the most decorated U.S. Olympian in a sport once dominated by teenagers. Several of Biles’ teammates in Paris — Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles and Suni Lee — are also in their 20s.
Frederick Richard hopes his Paris appearance blazes a trail for more African American men in gymnastics. “People don’t see gymnastics from the men’s side,” he told Andscape. “You see basketball every single day, when you pick up your phone, when you walk down the street, turn on the TV. You don’t see talk about gymnastics.”
Berenson believes that’s changing. Her colleague, Darius Campbell, says his company So Cal Gym Supply has recently seen an increase in orders for parallel bars and pommel horses — equipment specific to men’s competition.
And of the adults that Berenson has seen returning to gymnastics during the Paris Olympics, 70% are men, something she hadn’t seen before.
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