Through the 2024 Paris Olympics, gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik grew to become almost as well-known for his spellbinding pommel horse routine—which scored him a person bronze and in addition carried the US males’s staff to a bronze—as he did for his Clark Kent–esque glasses. The 25-year-old may nearly at all times be noticed chillin’ in his chunky black specs, however when it was his time to shine, he’d whip them off and ship a heroic athletic efficiency. Now, all eyes are on the bespectacled champ as soon as extra as he’s set to compete within the thirty third season of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, premiering on Tuesday, September 17, at 8 p.m. ET.
It seems, Nedoroscik’s trusty glasses aren’t simply a part of his signature look; as he’s shared up to now, he has two eye circumstances that have an effect on his imaginative and prescient. And the one purpose he took his glasses off pre-competition on the Olympics was as a result of they have been “gonna fly someplace” if he left them on, he instructed At this time. So he’s seemingly gotten used to competing with out having the ability to see clearly.
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In 2022, Nedoroscik posted a TikTok video wherein he defined that he has strabismus. He describes the situation as being cross-sighted earlier than demonstrating how he can “swap his dominant eye on command with each eyes open.” And through this 12 months’s Olympics, he commented on the video, noting that he posted it to see if anybody had an identical expertise of strabismus, and that he may shift his “world viewpoint from one eye to the opposite. Like one digital camera to a different [two inches] away.”
Portland, Oregon–primarily based ophthalmologist William Flanary, MD, who goes by Dr. Glaucomflecken, recommended in his personal TikTok video this summer time that Nedoroscik might have esotropia, a sort of strabismus the place one or each eyes flip inward towards your nostril. The frequent situation is sometimes called being “cross-eyed” and mainly entails a failure of muscle and nerve coordination—usually, eyes operate in tandem, however with esotropia, they function individually.