Meet Hezly Rivera, the 16-year-old gymnast who will make her Olympic debut in Paris together with a team of veterans

Before the second day of women’s competition at the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials officially began, 80 percent of the five-member team was virtually locked down.

Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey had broken away from an injury-depleted field on night one to claim the top four of the all-around rankings, and the Tokyo Olympics quartet matched up to a to form a well-rounded group. team with individual medal potential at multiple events.

But at the Paris Olympics, unlike the Tokyo Games, there will be teams of five in the artistic gymnastics events. Three contenders who were firmly in the mix to make the team – Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely and Kayla DiCello – withdrew from the trials due to injuries that occurred during the competition in Minneapolis. Jones, a prohibitive favorite to make the team, did not compete Sunday after injuring her knee during a jump warm-up on Friday. Blakely tore her Achilles tendon during podium practice Wednesday before the competition started, and DiCello suffered the same injury during her first jump of the competition Friday.

After two days of intense, unpredictable competition, Hezly Rivera earned her spot on the squad with four seasoned veterans.

The Olympic team final lasts one “three up, three count” format where three athletes compete on each apparatus and all three scores count. The US could fill the three spots on each event with a trio of Biles, Lee, Chiles and Carey, but that combination has slight weaknesses on the uneven bars and balance beam that could be improved with the addition of a gymnast who can be placed in the lineup to contribute a few more tenths.

Enter Rivera.

The 2023 all-round junior national champion made her senior elite debut earlier this year, having just turned 16 at the beginning of June. She doesn’t have much experience in international competitions, but she was part of the team that took silver at the world junior championships last year. Rivera, born in Oradell, N.J., trained under Maggie Haney, the coach of 2016 Olympian Laurie Hernandez, but Haney is currently suspended for five years by USA Gymnastics for verbal and emotional abuse of athletes. Rivera and her family moved to Texas, where she now trains at WOGA under Valeri Liukin, who coached his daughter Nastia to the 2008 Olympic all-around title.

Her uneven bars and balance beam routines are the key elements that determine how she fits into the team building puzzle. Her difficulty rating of 6.1 on beams allows her to score over 14.000 when she hits, and she can also contribute a score in the upper 13-low range of 14.00 on beam with a difficulty rating of 6.0.

On Sunday, she scored 14.300 on beam and 14.275 on beam, tying for first place on that event.

Imagine being a junior in high school competing in the US Olympic Trials?!

That dream is reality for 16-year-old Hezly Rivera. #USAGTrials24 pic.twitter.com/n8A9wmsMgQ

— NBC Olympic and Paralympic Games (@NBCOlympics) July 1, 2024

Her two lower-scoring events, vault and floor exercises, are not a problem because Biles, Chiles and Carey excel on those apparatus. In Paris, she will likely be counted on on beam in the team finals and as backup for the bar lineup if Lee, who is dealing with a kidney-related health condition, cannot perform on competition day.

When the stakes were high and even some veterans were feeling the nerves, Rivera proved she could handle the pressure. Now she’s going to Paris.

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(Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)