Stephen Nedoroscik has a very good reason for why he doesn’t practice his Dancing With the Stars routines with his girlfriend, Tess McCracken.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have the energy,” the gymnast, 25, exclusively told Us Weekly after the Tuesday, October 15, episode of DWTS. “I mean, not a lot of people understand just how much dance takes out in your body.”
As an Olympian, Nedoroscik thought the physical aspects of ballroom dance would be something he could manage — but the training is much harder than he expected.
“Man, I thought being an elite athlete I was going to be able to handle it,” Nedoroscik said. “But, oh my gosh, I get back from rehearsal and I am dead.”
While Nedoroscik doesn’t run his dances with McCracken, 26, before the show, she’s been by his side all season. McCracken has attended all of her boyfriend’s performances, cheering him on from the audience. Nedoroscik told Us that after every dance, McCracken shares that the latest dance was her “favorite.”
“It seems like every week it’s the new favorite, so I’ll have to ask her tonight how much she liked this one,” he shared. “But I’m sure she’ll say this is her new favorite.”
Nedoroscik’s latest dance was an Argentine tango dedicated to men’s gymnastics. (Nedoroscik and McCracken met in college where he was a member of the Penn State men’s gymnastics team.)
“I just want everyone to know, like, it’s possible. Look, me making the Olympic team, me making [the] national team, me making it to the NCAA, all of it was super unlikely,” Nedoroscik reflected. “But I just kind of held my head high and just tried my hardest, and I just want to let everyone know that [if they have] those dreams that they can do it if they work their butt off.”
Despite the difficulty of training, Nedoroscik has been committed to his performances each week and it paid off. During the Tuesday episode, the athlete and partner Rylee Arnold earned a 33 out of 40 as they were awarded their first nine of the season by judge Derek Hough.
“It felt amazing. It was the goal going in,” Nedoroscik said of the achievement. “It seems like I get to say it every week that we get to hit our goal. But tonight was special.”
During the dance, Nedoroscik got to show off his pommel horse expertise much like he did at the Paris Olympics.
“I literally was able to just hold my same composure for doing pommel horse and then just hold that as I did the rest of the dance,” he told Us. “So, that part was lovely.”
Arnold, 19, echoed similar sentiments sharing that Nedoroscik’s confidence got to shine.
“Stephen kind of gets in this mode when he goes and does his pommel horse routines. And it works perfect for the Argentine Tango because he was in that serious, like, game face mode,” she said. “So, it was really helpful to have that. And I think that was kind of how we honed in on that character he had today.”
Dancing With the Stars airs simultaneously on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET. Episodes are available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ the next day.
With reporting by Carly Konsker
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