Highlights of the 2024 Olympics: Types of Pommel Horse Gymnastics

Rhys McClenaghan holds something around his neck and looks intently at one side of his gold medal, then the other. The Irish Olympic pommel horse gymnastics champion looks as if he is trying to decipher something. He recognizes the Greek goddess of victory behind him. Nikethe Acropolis and the Eiffel Tower, or is he thinking of something completely different?

Nothing. He leaned inquiringly toward Stephen Nedorosik, who sat next to him with the bronze version around his neck. They both held each other’s medals in their hands and twisted and giggled for a long while.

“I cried because that was the moment I knew I had done well,” Rhys McClenaghan said of his post-workout outburst. After McClenaghan, Nedorosik immediately headed for the equipment. “I was really nervous watching you,” the current world champion said of the 2021 competition. The American blinked and grinned.

Nedoroscik cannot stand bright light. He suffers from several congenital eye diseases, including the fact that his eyes produce two images, but in his brain they cannot combine into one. He learned to focus on the images. However, he cannot drive, but horseback riding and gymnastics are allowed. He usually hangs his glasses on a magnesium can two meters from the device.

Nedoroscik often explains that he doesn’t need to see anything during practice. The two are clearly similar, with silver medalist Nariman Kurbanov from Kazakhstan sitting next to McClenahan. McClenahan also praised his performance in detail, boldly saying in his enthusiasm: “That was the best pommel horse final in the history of gymnastics.”

The horse is perhaps the strangest of the men’s gymnastic equipment. Born in antiquity as a wooden animal substitute for practicing rises and falls, it became an element of court entertainment and aristocratic education during the Renaissance, long before the father of gymnastics, Jahn, incorporated it into his gym equipment. Today’s equipment is more like a pony: a meter high, a meter and a half long and only 35 centimeters wide; the exercises are hardly reminiscent of sitting up and sitting down.

The allure of pommel horse gymnastics isn’t obvious at first glance. There are no moments of flight – as in high bar gymnastics – no acrobatic feel – as in floor exercise – and no moments – as on the rings – of pure power, of your own body holding a certain position. That’s what’s so fascinating.

You have to see it. The people in the world who are best at using this equipment are mostly experts; they train day in and day out, using this equipment all the time. This creates a very special relationship between horse and athlete.

Shortly before leaving the arena, McClanahan walked over to the horse again and gently stroked the beige surface. At his home in Newton Narrows, a small town in Northern Ireland near Belfast, his horses are all named. The training machine for Paris is called “Kaylia,” after Kaylia Nemour, a gymnast who is McClanahan’s favorite.

Pommel horse experts tend to be odd characters. Stephen Nedoroscik is a prime example. The 25-year-old Penn State graduate has a degree in electrical engineering with a concentration in robotics. He follows his rituals closely. The morning before the final, that means: “Six apple slices, a chocolate muffin, and a few laps with the Rubik’s Cube.”

His record is under nine seconds, and he posted a demo at a Paris gym. It’s how he passes the time, he says: “There’s something meditative about it, I just can’t put too much pressure on myself to always finish in ten seconds, then it takes the pressure off me, which is good for me.” On the morning of the final, Nedorosik took it as a positive sign.