Who Is USA Olympic Gymnast Hezly Rivera?
Hezly Rivera is no ordinary high schooler. The youngest addition to the United States gymnastics team that is headed to Paris for the 2024 Olympics, Rivera is 16 and ready to conquer the world. She's certainly competed on the international stage, but the Olympics — the sporting summit that turns champions into legends — will no doubt mark a major milestone in her gymnastics career.
From having her talents discovered at a birthday party, to dreaming about the Games since childhood, to watching the team dazzle at the Tokyo Olympics, to finally making the cut alongside those legends, Rivera has traced quite an exciting journey so far. Naturally, she is overjoyed. As the young gymnast said to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, "I could not have imagined that and I am just so excited and never would have thought that would have happened."
Rivera is not only the junior-most athlete on Team USA, but she also happens to be one of the youngest participants overall at the Olympics this year. And yet, veterans of the sport have already noted that she approaches the competition with a remarkable level of composure and confidence. Here's what else there is to know about Hezly Rivera before she hits the beam in Paris at the 2024 Olympics.
Hezly Rivera is competing amongst veteran gymnasts
For more reasons than one, Hezly Rivera is now a household name in the United States. The first, no doubt, relates to the stunning performance she delivered at the Olympic trials that took place in June 2024, clinching the coveted fifth spot on the Paris-bound gymnastics team. She has been out and about in both national and international gymnastic circles for quite a few years now, but the opportunity to represent the U.S. on the biggest sporting stage beamed the spotlight on her like never before. "I've worked so hard to get here ... I'm just enjoying the journey and the process, and I'm so blessed, and I thank God every day," she told NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.
What's more, her age has received a lot of attention. At only 16, Rivera stands as the youngest athlete on Team USA for the 2024 Olympics (as of this writing). She joins 2016 Rio Olympic Games icon Simone Biles, of course, plus Tokyo Olympics stars Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey. Rivera will bring her bars and beam expertise to the table, but as the junior-most of the lot, she's ready to learn from the veteran Olympians. As she told the AP, "I definitely love competing with the senior crowd and all the seniors. You know, they're all so sweet and supportive and always cheering you on, and the energy is just so big. So I really love that."
The Olympics have been a childhood dream for her
When Hezly Rivera was 5 years old, she attended a friend's birthday party at a local gymnastics gym. That party would change her life forever. "The staff at the facility approached my parents and told them that they should try to have me try out for the team and that's what they did," she said, as quoted by USA Gymnastics. From that moment on, gymnastics became an essential part of Hezly's life, as her social media shows. The young star's Instagram, initially managed by her parents, brims with videos of her training hard and attempting gravity-defying stunts throughout her childhood.
By the time she was 8, Hezly Rivera had her eyes set on the Olympics. The journey toward that dream — which came true eight years later — was hardly smooth. As her father Henry Rivera shared on LinkedIn in 2022, there were endless hurdles along the way. Hezly triumphed over them all.
"All the ups and downs, all the injuries she had to overcome. Not being able to compete the last 3 years do [sic] to fractures, operations, covid pandemic and so many other obstacles, shows how focused and determined she's been," Henry wrote, calling his gymnast daughter his hero. More than familiar with all she weathered to realize her Olympic ambitions, an ecstatic Hezly echoed to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth,"I have made so many sacrifices to get here."
She has been trained by some of the best in the sport
Hezly Rivera evidently had natural talent, but that can only get a competitive gymnast so far. Early on, she started working with trainers, and clearly, those trainers pushed her toward the right path. The Olympic-bound athlete has been coached by some of the finest names in the sport, most notably by former Russian gymnast couple Valeri and Anna Liukin. Parents of 2008 Olympics star Nastia Liukin, they took Hezly under their wing when she joined their World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA) in Texas.
WOGA has been the launchpad for many world champions — including one of Hezly's role models, the stunning and talented Gabby Douglas — and was quick to give their latest success story an enthusiastic shoutout on Instagram: "Next stop Paris!!! WOGA is beyond proud to announce that we have another Olympian ... We are so proud of Hezly and her coaches for all of their hard work and dedication!"
As a preteen, Hezly also trained under controversial ex-coach Maggie Haney, who is currently facing a suspension over charges of abuse. While the young gymnast admitted to The New York Times that the training was tough, she stated that she was never mistreated by Haney. Her father Henry Rivera added, "If my daughter has goals and her goal is to be an elite athlete, I need a coach to teach her the right things and safely, and to push them."
Hezly Rivera has multiple championships under her belt
Hezly Rivera is on her way to the ultimate sporting milestone, having refined her competitive skills through the many rounds of national and international events she has on her record. Just five years into her gymnastics training, she began performing nationally, starting notably with the Hopes Classic in 2018. Come 2022, Rivera took things up a notch, appearing on the winning junior team that went to Germany for the DTB Pokal Stuttgart. From that point on, it was triumph after triumph for the junior athlete. A significant sporting moment took place in Turkey, where she competed at the 2023 Junior World Championships. She enthused on Instagram, "left antalya, turkey as a 2-time jr. world silver medalist! i'm so happy and I give all the glory to God for making everything possible."
Rivera also regularly aced it on the national gymnastics scene. She participated in the Winter Cup for three consecutive years starting 2022, securing first place in the all-around competition at the last two events. The stage effectively prepared her for the bright sporting future that awaited her, with Rivera telling Gymnastics Now, "I'm looking forward to getting a few medals out and to just try to hit my best routines that I can and stay calm and not freak out." By the time she reached Minneapolis for the Olympic trials, Rivera had built up a reputation as a promising athlete to watch out for.
She outshone her contemporaries to nab the fifth spot on the USA team
Ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games, Hezly Rivera clinched the fifth spot on the women's gymnastics team thanks to her glorious performance at the final tryouts. She scored good numbers on the bars and beam — her strongest points — coming in at 14.300 and 14.275 respectively. Though her vault and floor exercises did not yield the best ratings, Rivera was able to match up her two-day average score to that of true living legend Simone Biles.
"The fifth spot came down to what we felt like we were lacking as a team and that was on beam, and Hezly really delivered tonight putting up two great scores ... we felt she'd be a good person to fill that last spot," Alicia Sacramone Quinn, former Olympian and head of the USA Gymnastics selection committee, said after Rivera's selection (via Time).
Rivera was certainly stunned to see that she'd be joining Suni Lee, Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey in Paris, and she was thrilled that her Olympic dreams had already come true. "My mentality was that I had nothing to lose, so I just went out there and did my best ... I was pretty surprised to hear my name, but I've also been working for this my whole life," she told Hoda Kotb on NBC's "Today." Her race to the Olympics team was also considerably smoother after Shilese Jones, Kayla DiCello, and Skye Blakely dropped out of the competition due to injuries.
Remaining calm under pressure is one of her strong suits
With the kind of error-free performance a sport like gymnastics demands, pressure is inevitable. Not for Hezly Rivera though. The 16-year-old possesses incredible levels of calm that have kept her unruffled through some of her most important sporting moments. Making the Olympics team was certainly a high-stakes endeavor for the high school junior, but she stayed unfazed. "I thought of it as every other meet. Just going out there and doing my thing, basically doing what I do in the gym," she told NBC 5 Dallas Fort-Worth. Viewing herself as the "underdog" among a league of greats was useful in staving off any stress she might have felt. "I was just thinking it's just me and my beam or just me and the bar. I try to calm myself down beforehand," she said.
Rivera's level-headedness made quite an impression on her seniors, including Alicia Sacramone Quinn. According to NBC News, Quinn recalled a moment before the competition when she asked Rivera if she was nervous and was floored by the teenager's über cool response: "She's like 'No ... you look nice by the way.' I was like 'Thank you,' but I was very impressed with her demeanor."
At the end of the day, Rivera knows she can count on the work she's put in behind the scenes. As she told Inside Gymnastics Magazine at the 2023 U.S. Classic, "I just try to stay as calm as possible because I know I'm prepared for everything and I know what I can do."
Hezly Rivera sees mistakes as part of the process
Hezly Rivera is not one to be bogged down by mistakes. Though she may be part of a world-class gymnastics team hoping to strike gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the teenager has always been wise enough to see value in her slip-ups and considers them a part of the learning curve. One such moment occurred at the 2023 Junior World Championships, when 14-year-old Rivera's hand slipped on the vault during her routine.
The misstep was likely the result of the vault being a little more slippery than usual. Nevertheless, it did little to dent her winning spirit. Rivera emerged from the competition with a silver medal — and a few lessons. "I definitely can take everything, everything that I did and learn from it," she told Olympics.com, emphasizing her forward-looking approach to life. "Even the mess-ups, I'm so grateful for those because it makes me a better gymnast."
That same year, Rivera also played nationals at the Winter Cup in Louisville, where she bagged the junior women's all-around title but also took a fall during one of her routines. She told Gymnastics Now, "I was trying to go for my full-in, full-out dismount, and it didn't feel too bad in the air. But I don't know, I guess I was just too tired to kick, and I didn't get the landing all the way through." True to form, she didn't lose her poise and counted the event as a major confidence booster.
Her father is one of her biggest supporters
Some of the loudest cheers for Hezly Rivera are coming from her parents. Henry Rivera — also known as "the best dad in the whole world," according to the gymnast — and Hezly's mom Heidy Ruiz are without question her biggest fans. In fact, Hezly's gymnastic ambitions catalyzed the family to pack up and move from New Jersey to Texas, so she could train with the greats at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA).
In the aforementioned New York Times story, Henry spoke about his daughter's rigorous training and noted that he's always made a point to keep tabs on how she's doing "emotionally, mentally and physically." And Hezly has taken note. "He has been with me since the beginning and always been supporting me since I was little ... He is my hero, my rock and always pushes me to do my best. And always comforting when things get rough," Hezly told NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.
When Hezly made the cut for the Olympics team, it should come as no surprise that Henry was beside himself. In a sit-down with NBC Sports, the proud father said, "I can't describe everything that is going through my head. It's the biggest joy in the world." Her mom was too overcome by emotion to speak.
She seems to have found a mentor in Simone Biles
Hezly Rivera is a newcomer to the Olympic scene but she has already won massive favor among her sporting seniors — including the greatest to ever do it. Legendary American gymnast Simone Biles seems to be a big fan of Rivera, who is over a decade younger than the seven-time Olympic medalist. At a press conference that was held after the 2024 Olympic team trials, Biles couldn't stop raving about her new teammate. "Should we teach her how to drive before she gets to Paris? Jeez! She's so young. She's so cute. She's so smart. She's beautiful. We're really proud of her for making this team," she said.
Biles added that Rivera was backed by the experience of Olympic veterans who would "definitely guide her through the ropes" — an advantage the 16-year-old has admitted to counting on for her debut. "I think it's super comforting ... They have been through the journey and the Olympic Games. I think they will be able to mentor me. Not just at the Games, but in terms of training," she told NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.
Incidentally, the two gymnasts' camaraderie was foreshadowed in a picture taken eight years prior at Rivera's gym, where she met Biles. A super young Rivera, dressed in a patriotic leotard, can be seen standing beside Biles, who — only a few months after this meeting — would make her Olympic debut in Rio and create history with four gold wins.