He’s a specialist, here because he excels in one event: the pommel horse, an apparatus so fickle that a single misstep can throw an athlete’s rhythm off and the routine off course. And in the final moments of Monday’s final, Nedoroscik had to deliver to give the United States its first Olympic team medal since 2008. He jumped onto the apparatus and began to swing, gliding through each event and maneuvering his hands with precision. The other gymnasts watched with their arms around each other, and as soon as he stepped off, the celebration began.

Nedoroscik’s teammates lifted him off the ground and he said, “Man, that’s a memory that will stay in my mind forever.”

Nedoroscik had done more than enough to take the bronze medal, with the Americans’ score of 257.793 putting them firmly in the bronze medal position behind powers Japan and China. In a testament to how much the Americans have improved since their distant fifth-place finish at the Tokyo Games three years ago, the U.S. men finished less than two points behind gold medalist Japan with a score of 259.594.

The other top teams made mistakes; the Americans were the exception. China, the silver medalist, entered the final rotation with a significant lead, but Su Weide fell twice during his high bar routine, dropping his team to second place. Meanwhile, the U.S. men completed all 18 routines of the night, with Nedoroscik’s key 40-second performance an exclamation point for what his teammates had done throughout the competition. They had struggled during the qualifying round, but when push came to shove, the U.S. men were at their best.

“We knew what we were capable of and we believed in it. We believed in each other, we believed in ourselves and we believed that we could have a great day today,” said Brett McClure, president of the U.S. high performance division.

Going into the final rotation, the United States was in third place, nearly two points ahead of Ukraine in fourth. The cushion provided some reassurance, but the final three sets of horse and buck would determine whether the United States would walk away with a long-awaited Olympic team medal.

Paul Judah, who has been the most stable member of the team at these Games, started the rotation with a solid set. Brody Malone, the only returning Olympian on the team, had a disastrous exit in the qualifying round, falling on the pommel horse and struggling on other events. But his rebounding performance continued into the final event, and his routine allowed Nedoroscik to get the job done.

Throughout the evening, Nedoroscik said, he visualized his routine about 100 times. Toward the end of the competition, he left the arena and practiced briefly in the warm-up gym. Then he finally saluted the judges and performed. After Nedoroscik landed and put his goggles back on his face, he was surrounded by his teammates and coaches. The hugs seemed endless. For the Americans, a breakthrough bronze felt as meaningful as a gold.

The U.S. men won bronze at last fall’s world championships, their first medal in nearly a decade, fueling optimism that they could end their Olympic drought this year. The absence of Russia, which is not allowed to field teams here because of its invasion of Ukraine, created an opening on the podium.

But when the United States finished in fifth place after the qualifying round — behind Great Britain and Ukraine, as well as China and Japan — the team’s medal chances looked bleak. The Americans trailed third-place Great Britain by more than three points, largely because of Malone’s mistakes.

The United States could not rely on simple routines in the hope that a clean execution would earn a medal. The Americans had to maximize the difficulty And perform well. One routine after another in the final, that’s what they did.

The U.S. men showed off a stellar rotation of jumps, starting with Judah’s perfectly locked 2½-twist jump that generated such excitement that he ran off the stage afterward. When Malone followed with another locked jump, chants of “USA” filled the arena. And then Asher Hong closed out the lineup with a powerful jump, the team’s most difficult. As they rotated into their third event, the chants began again — louder and longer this time — and the U.S. gymnasts pumped their fists in acknowledgement.

“I think that jump set the mood 100 percent,” said Sam Mikulak, a three-time Olympian who coaches Nedoroscik and Malone. “From that moment on I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is fun.’”

Nearly every routine was equal to or better than the team’s last time out, and Malone led the turnaround. After falling twice off the high bar on Saturday, he powered through his difficult set without a hitch this time around. Just ahead of Malone, Frederick Richard flew through a high-flying routine as his teammates jumped in response to each successful release and again after his excellent stalled dismount. On that apparatus alone, the Americans improved their score by more than two points. And finally, they moved on to the pommel horse with a medal on the line.

Nedoroscik was no stranger to moments like this. He earned a spot on the team for the 2022 World Championships, but in the team finals, he didn’t perform to his potential. When Syque Caesar began coaching Nedoroscik shortly after, he wanted to look Nedoroscik’s past mistakes in the eye.

“We had to peel back the layers,” Caesar said, explaining how he went about figuring out exactly what went wrong for Nedoroscik at some key moments.

Nedoroscik won the gold medal at the 2021 world championships, but there was work to be done to develop consistency. Caesar said it took more than a year to figure out what worked best for Nedoroscik, adding mental cues that helped him cope with changing competitive conditions. Caesar added “curveballs” to the training. One example, Caesar explained a few weeks ago, was having Nedoroscik sit for two hours and then perform a routine — a similar scenario to what the 25-year-old went through on Monday.

“He has embraced the pressure and the unexpected setbacks,” Caesar said.

In the past, when Caesar would put pressure on him in practice, Nedoroscik’s response would be, “You don’t have to put any more pressure on me. I’ve already put pressure on myself.” But now he doesn’t try to minimize the weight of the moment. Did he feel the pressure in the team final? “Oh, yeah,” he said. But he knows he can handle it. And here, in the biggest moment of his career, he proved it.