Originally appeared on E! Online
Stephen Nedoroscik and Tess McCracken first met in college, and they’ve been sticking the landing ever since.
Eight years into their relationship, the gymnast duo have perfected their routine — and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I think it's really that we just get each other,” McCracken told E! News in an exclusive interview from the 2024 Paris Olympics, adding the key is all about, “Being able to have the intellectual conversations, the gymnastics conversations — we very frequently end up having debates”
And in typical fashion of athletes who need a cool head under pressure, Nedoroscik, 25, and McCracken, 26, keep things calm.
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As she explained, “Neither one of us gets worked up. We disagree, we go back and forth with our logic, we think about it. And that's really great.”
Because at the end of the day, there’s no other place they’d rather be than with each other.
“We're each other's person,” McCracken summed it up. “We don't get tired of each other. We don't feel like we need like that break. I think that has really helped over the last eight years — just keep us solid. And it's been a great time.”
Most recently, that great time carried the pair all the way to the 2024 Paris Olympics, where McCracken was there to support Nedoroscik as he helped lead his team to a bronze medal win — their first medal in 16 years — with a near-perfect pommel horse routine.
But while Nedoroscik — who is a two-time NCAA Champion, has placed first in two World Cup events and, in 2021, became the first American World Champion on the pommel horse — makes the event look almost effortless, it doesn’t make it any easier for McCracken watching from the sidelines.
“It is the most stressful thing I've ever done,” she confessed. “I wear a Fitbit, and my heart rate easily goes over 140 beats a minute when he goes. Even before he goes, just thinking about the fact that he's about to go, it starts climbing.”
In fact, McCracken is such an empathetic viewer that when she watches from home on the TV, she has an interesting routine.
“I will pause the broadcast before he goes and then wait until like, Twitter or someone says how he did,” she admitted, “and then I'll go back and watch it, because I can't take the anxiety.”
“It's so much harder than when I competed,” she added. “Beam was my best event, and competing beam was easier than watching him go.”
But as difficult as it was to watch him compete on the pommel horse at the Olympics — which ultimately earned the high score of 15.200 — McCracken and Nedoroscik have been reveling in his newfound stardom after he became an online sensation.
Including all the memes that have come with it.
“My favorite so far has been the ‘and your friends Steve, do-do-do-do-do-do-do Steve,’” McCracken said of the Garfunkel and Oates TikTok sound. “I love that one.”
And while she noted Nedoroscik, too, has loved the many comparisons that have been made, including those to LeBron James and Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent, McCracken said the 25-year-old is currently preparing for his pommel horse individual final on August 3.
“He is trying to get locked in,” McCracken explained. “He had a lot of media the last few days, a lot of appearances and interviews. Ad he kind of put his foot down and said, “I need to focus and get back dialed in. I'm only training from here on out through Saturday, and then we can talk again afterwards.’”
