What Eye Condition Affects Stephen Nedoroscik? Understanding the Pommel Horse Champion’s Eyewear

Stephen Nedoroscik helped the U.S. men’s gymnastics team win their first Olympic medal in 16 years when he nailed his pommel horse routine at the Paris Olympics. Since then, Stephen’s gone viral for his adorable mannerisms, but it’s led fans to wonder about the eye condition that requires him to wear glasses.

Stephen has an eye condition called strabismus, the medical term for being cross-eyed. However, it doesn’t always affect both eyes and can sometimes only cause one eye to be misaligned. The condition can be treated with “glasses, patching, eye exercises, medication or surgery,” according to The Cleveland Clinic.

Stephen also has a condition called coloboma, which he’s talked about in previous TikTok videos. Coloboma is a genetic condition that occurs when some of the tissue that makes up the eye is missing at birth. However, there are different types of coloboma and it depends on which part of the eye is missing tissue.

In August 2022, Stephen posted a TikTok video asking for help finding more information about his eye condition. In the clip, he explained that he’s “cross-eyed” and can “switch [his] dominant eye on command with both eyes open.” Stephen then went on to show viewers how he could switch back and forth with his eyes open.

A popular doctor on the social media app had the answers to the pommel horse hero’s questions. William E. Flanary, who goes by Dr. Glaucomflecken on social media, is an ophthalmologist and said that Stephen is “farsighted” and has a condition called “strabismus, specifically esotropia.” This causes one eye or both eyes to turn inward.

“This is a common form of strabismus we see in young kids, sometimes as early as 6 months of age,” Dr. Glaucomflecken said in a TikTok video posted on July 30, 2024. “Basically, because of the farsightedness, his eyes are working so hard to focus that they end up turning in. Fortunately, glasses can do a great job of making the eyes straight.”

The eye doc added that he would guess that Stephen was “in a pair of glasses from a very early age.”

“He also has alternating fixation,” Dr. Glaucomflecken continued. “He can fixate with either eye as he demonstrated in the video, and this is actually pretty fortunate. Some kids with esotropia have one eye that they just forget about. They just focus with maybe their left eye or their right eye and they just ignore the other eye and then that eye doesn’t develop normal vision. But, he spent his childhood years alternating his fixation, which some kids do. So, he’ll fixate with his right eye and then fixate with the left eye and just go back and forth.”

Dr. Glaucomflecken said that Stephen alternating between eyes allowed him to “develop normal vision in each eye separately.” He also guessed that Stephen didn’t have great “stereo vision,” which means that his eyes likely don’t work together simultaneously.

After the photo of Stephen resting calmly on the sidelines while wearing his glasses went viral, viewers who suffer from the condition as well were inspired. On July 30, 2024, GymUSA posted a photo of the gymnast with a boy who had been diagnosed with the same condition.

Dr. Glaucomflecken also praised Stephen for raising awareness for glasses-wearers around the world.

“Just seeing someone like him on such a huge stage, winning an Olympic medal and unabashedly wearing his glasses…does a lot for making it normal,” the ophthalmologist told Time.