Bronze medallist US Olympian Stephen Nedoroscik is not only a top athlete competing at the top level in his field but he is also a top-ranked Rocket League player.
Plenty of Olympians are indeed quite nerdy, with 100 sprint gold medallist Noah Lyles pulling out a Blue Eye’s White Dragon Yu-Gi-Oh card during national heats (don’t tell Seto Kaiba), and one of them is Nedoroscik, who was also discovered to be a top-ranked Rocket League player.
In the Paris Olympics, Nedoroscik won Bronze for the USA and is known as a pommel horse specialist. Besides the Olympics, he’s a world and four-time US national champion.
To add to his impressive list of achievements, he’s also Champion 3 in Rocket League. For context, he is essentially just one rank away from the top-ranked group, Grand Champion. However, he has reached Grand Champion 1 before.
This puts Nedoroscik among the top 1.7% of Rocket League players on earth. According to the Rocket League tracker, he is Champion 3 on Ranked 2v2 and Champion in both 1v1 and 3v3.
Stephen Nedoroscik, an athlete from Team USA's men's gymnastics, is nerdy, adorable and really good at sports! pic.twitter.com/Qvf02skw90
— LilHumansBigImpact (@BigImpactHumans) August 8, 2024
He also streams on Twitch, so if you’re curious about what it's like for an Olympian to play at a level most of us will never reach, you can check him out there.
As it turns out, Nedoroscik is not the only athlete on the big stage with a very high level of play in video games. Boston Scott, a Running Back for the Los Angeles Rams, was signed on to Dignitas as a substitute for their Rocket League team. And Dallas Maverick’s star Luka Doncic has been known for his love of Overwatch, even cracking the top 500 in the game.
Stephen Nedoroscik is really good at Rocket League 😄
Maybe he should enter the Esports World Cup 🤔https://t.co/m2ADs3ywmf 👈 pic.twitter.com/DsnCOA5i9D— BettingToolsUS (@BettingToolsUS) August 9, 2024
Should it be a shock that an Olympian has a hobby outside their sport? No, due to their physical and mental demands, they need to unwind in a way that won’t hinder the result of their competition.
