Paris 2024: Meet Hezly Rivera, the 16-year-old ’underdog’ on the heavily favoured US Olympic gymnastics team

Hezly Rivera planned to spend a significant portion of this summer learning how to drive. So I really love that.” And her somewhat unexpected arrival gives the oldest U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team ever a welcome jolt of youth. “I can’t imagine how Simone feels.” Biles — who briefly met Rivera before the 2016 Olympics while Rivera was still in elementary school — joked it might be up to the rest of the team to find a way to get her behind the wheel ahead of Paris. “She’s just so calm, cool and collected,” said U.S. women’s national team strategic lead Alicia Sacramone Quinn, who was on the three-person selection committee. “She had a few meets as a junior that were rough and you need those rough meets to build some character and build that experience and she came out and I asked her ‘Are you nervous?’ And she’s like, ‘Nope.’” Rivera even had the presence of mind to compliment Quinn on her outfit, a hint that she wasn’t exactly getting caught up in the enormity of the moment, something Rivera admits gets her “all scrambled and stuff.” There was no scrambling during trials, just the steely resolve of an athlete who peaked at the right time.