The Olympic journey of Rivera, a 16-year-old star gymnast from the Dallas area, reaches Paris this month.
Hezly Rivera competes in the floor exercise at the United States Gymnastics Olympic Trials on Sunday, June 30, 2024, in Minneapolis.’s Olympic journey started 11 years ago at a friend’s birthday party in New Jersey and culminates this month in Paris, a trip through the best and worst of gymnastics that led her to the door of WOGA Gymnastics in Plano and leaves her the youngest member of the five-woman team.
Hezly Rivera smiles as she is named to the 2024 Olympics team at the United States Gymnastics Olympic Trials on Sunday, June 30, 2024, in Minneapolis.A little ill fortune among her top competition helped her cause. Rivera made her senior debut at 15 this year at the Winter Cup, finishing third in the all-around behind Kayla DiCello and Dallas native Skye Blakely, who also trains at WOGA.
Rivera’s journey started at 5, when she attended a friend’s birthday party at a local gym in Oradell, N.J. The organizers were so impressed by her precocious talent, they told her parents they should enroll her in a gymnastics class.Her first instruction came at ENA Gymnastics in Oradell. It didn’t take long for her coach, Craig Zappa, to realize her potential.recently, “you started to see that this kid had something special that she could actually someday get there if all the cards lined up.
“Valeri’s such a great coach,” Hezly said last month, “who’s so good technically as well. So I said, ‘I think that’s the gym I should go to.’”
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