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The internet’s favorite 2024 Olympic athletes, from “Pommel Horse Guy” to a gymnast holding a wheel of cheese

August 1, 2024 Benjamin Hughes

From a man with one job — to absolutely crush it on the pommel horse — to a sharpshooter, to a rugby player making Olympic Village her “Love Island,” several Olympians have gained hero status both at the Paris Games and online. They’ve not only become champions in their sports but the subjects of viral videos and memes. 

Here are the breakout stars the internet is loving from the Paris Olympics.

Steven Nedoroscik, “Pommel Horse Guy”

Steven Neodoroscik, 25, is a specialist for Team USA men’s gymnastics, meaning he was brought onto the team for his expertise in one event: pommel horse. He captured hearts when he accomplished a difficult feat, waiting around for hours until it was time for his event, a 45-second performance that became crucial for the team.

Worcester, Massachusetts, native, a Penn State grad with an electrical engineering degree and a talent for solving a Rubik’s cube, has been endearingly called a nerd by some. It may be his modest personality – admitting he was a late bloomer to the sport and didn’t get recruited by the NCAA  – and his love of his girlfriend, whom he frequently talks about, that captured hearts.

And to many, he’s a hero. The Team USA men’s gymnastics team hasn’t taken home an Olympic medal in 16 years and pommel horse was their weak spot. Neodoroscik understood the assignment and has since been called Spiderman, Clark Kent and Team USA’s secret weapon. 

Neodoroscik, who won two national titles before his Olympics debut, isn’t done. He will once again be the last person to compete for the team, this time, in the individual pommel horse competition on Saturday.

Ilona Maher, the body-positive social media star

Twenty-seven-year-old Ilona Maher helped Team USA women’s rugby earn its first Olympic medal in Paris — but she’s more than athlete. Maher has become a role model online, using social media to break down body shaming and stereotypes. 

When she received a comment about her body mass index, Maher, who is 5-foot-10 and 200 pounds, set the record straight on social media, explaining that her body type doesn’t bother her — she has about 170 lbs of lean mass, which makes her a fit athlete. 

She told CBS News’ Jamie Yuccas that the haters are her motivators. “I think there has always been a divide. People believing that, oh, when you play sports, if you’re an athlete, you can’t be feminine,” the Burlington, Vermont, native said. “I feel that I can be a beast and can play this very physical, aggressive sport while also keeping my femininity while I do it.”

Despite others calling her masculine, she says she has always felt feminine. “For me, it’s really important that I am doing something that’s showing what my body is capable of and that’s why I want other women to even (if) it’s just, get in the gym and lift weights, like see what your body can do, you know, do get to the point where you can do a pull-up. Oh man, I’m so powerful. I can do this. I just think it gave me a new perspective on my body,” she said.

The two-time Olympian has also treated her millions of social media followers to behind-the-scenes content at the Olympics. She’s traded Olympic pins with stars like Simone Biles, met former NFL player Jason Kelce and tried to break the infamous cardboard beds in Olympic Village.

She’s brought a self deprecating humor to her videos about finding love at the Olympics, calling the village were athletes stay “Olympic Villa” – a play on the reality dating show Love Island, where singles try to find a mate in a villa.

After helping her team win the bronze, she celebrated by strutting her stuff down a catwalk at Champions Park, a venue where athletes go to get their much-deserved accolades.

Kim Yeji, the Olympics’ “coolest” athlete

Kim Yeji, a sharpshooter from the Republic of Korea, has gone viral for her performance in her pistol shooting event – because she made it look so cool.

Kim wore a pair of custom bespoke glasses to help with her precision, a baseball cap and black outfit that many online said made her look “badass.” 

She’s been described widely on social media as the “coolest” athlete at the Olympics — but a softer accessory also gained wide attention. Kim carried her daughter’s stuffed elephant toy during her event, holding the toy to her hip as if it were another pistol in her holster. 

Videos of her bad to the bone shooting performance – where she nonchalantly shoots her gun, takes out the bullet and stares down the camera — have gone viral. As many have said online, she gave “main character energy.”

The stern-faced Kim earned silver in the 10 meter air pistol competition while her teammate, Oh Ye Jin, won gold. The 31-year-old also broke a world record this year in the 25m pistol women’s final at the rifle World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

Giorgia Villa, the gymnast sponsored by cheese

Many athletes get brand sponsorships, typically with athletic wear brands or sports drinks. But Italian gymnast Giorgia Villa has the most iconically Italian sponsorship ever — Parmesan cheese.

Villa, a 21-year-old from Ponte San Pietro, helped lead her team to silver in the team all around event. But old photos from a 2021 ad campaign with Parmigiano Reggiano really made her stand out. In the ad, Villa wears her leotard and cradles a giant wheel of cheese on a gymnastics mat. In another shot, she does a split on four wheels of cheese.

In an post on social media, Villa referred to the cheese as her “best friend.” The images went viral this week, with many saying on social media they wanted to become an athlete just for the hope that they could get such a sponsor.

Adidas collaborated on a post with Villa on Instagram, saying she went down in history. But commenters were hoping to see another brand post on her social media — the cheese. “Girl I’m here for the cheese please?” one person commented.

“Came here cause I was told she takes pictures with giant wheels of cheese. leaving disappointed,” another wrote.

“Where’s the cheese ma’am,” followed another.

Villa and her team made history when they won silver, Italy’s first medal in the event since 1928. Brazil earned their first team medal in the event ever, taking home bronze. 

Leon Marchand, the next Phelps 

French swimmer Leon Marchand is being compared with Olympic great Michael Phelps — and Phelps sees his greatness too. 

“For me, nobody believed that I was able to do the things that I was trying to do, right? But I did, deep down inside, and same thing for [Marchand],” Phelps said told sports analyst Pat McAfee. “A lot of people said my records were never gonna be broken and untouched, but clearly it’s not that.”

At the Paris Games, Marchand broke Phelps’ record in the 400m individual medley. 

Marchand said swimming the race in 4:02.50 was “insane” and one of the most painful things he’s done. “It was amazing to do it here, and the time is crazy,” he said.

Phelps told McAfee he loves being able to see a young man have a dream and work to achieve it. “He and I have so many similarities,” he said.

In Paris, Marchand also broke Hungarian swimmer Kristóf Milák’s record in the 200m freestyle race. Phelps also acknowledged how hard Marchaud’s race day was. 

After beating Milak, he had to go on to swim the 200m breaststroke. “That’s probably the greatest double I’ve ever seen in the history of the sport,” Phelps said while commentating on the race. “To be able to go 1:52 and 2:05, the kid can obviously swim, we know that, and if we didn’t know it before, he’s gonna be here for a long time. He’s gonna make a lot of noise.”

If you need any more convincing, Marchand won gold in all three of the aforementioned Olympics events.

Another connection to Phelps: Marchand trained with the same coach, Bob Bowman, who trained Phelps as a child and at University of Michigan. Marchand was so keen on following in Phelps’ footsteps, he emailed Bowman saying he wanted to swim on his team at Arizona State University, he told NBC. The email worked, and he joined the team in 2020.

The Toulouse native is the son of two swimmers, Olympian Xavier Marchand and French record holder Céline Bonnet.

Gianmarco Tamberi, the apologetic husband

Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi made headlines before the competitions even began. After the opening ceremonies last week, he posted an apology to his wife – because he lost his wedding ring in the Seine during the athletes’ entrance to the event on boats.

Tamberi stood at the front of the Italian team’s boat, waving his country’s flag and unknowingly losing his wedding band in the river below.

“I’m sorry my love, I’m so sorry,” he wrote to his wife, Chiara, in a social media post after realizing he lost the ring – blaming it on losing too much weight and practicing “irrepressible enthusiasm,” BBC News reports.

“If it had to happen, if I had to lose this ring, I couldn’t imagine a better place,” he wrote. His ring, he said, will “remain forever in the riverbed of the city of love” and he told his wife they could throw her ring in the river too, so they can be there together. His romantic note for his wife made people across the world swoon — and she found it sweet, too.

“Only you could turn this into something romantic,” she commented on the apology post. 

Tamberi’s high jump events don’t begin until Aug. 7. He said in his Instagram post he hopes to come home with even bigger gold than the lost ring. 

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Source: cbsnews.com