Hezly Rivera’s long road to a first Worlds<\/p>\n
She’s been in this place before: U.S. champion, a likely star at the U.S. team for the World Championships. But it didn’t go according to plan, last time.<\/p>\n
Last September, on the cusp of the 2025 Worlds in Jakarta, she rolled her ankle in training and was out of the running.<\/p>\n
“Heartbreaking,” Liukin said. “She literally rolled her ankle on a simple drill for vault… it was just a fluke accident that sport unfortunately delivers for you. But nevertheless, I still have PTSD from that.”<\/p>\n
This time, Rivera is aiming at a first Worlds sure of what she would carry into it.<\/p>\n
“I think it just shows how strong I am mentally, because physically everything’s there,” she said. “This is a really great setup for World Championships. You don’t just compete for one day, you have multiple days.”<\/p>\n
Leading the U.S. team’s next wave<\/p>\n
The role is different now, too. Two years ago in Paris, Rivera was the 16-year-old nobody outside the sport knew, and no one inside the sport had expected to make the Olympic squad.<\/p>\n
Now, she is the one the younger gymnasts look to.<\/p>\n
“I just love kind of being a leader in a way, even though I am a vet,” she said. “It’s kind of weird to say that I am a vet… if anyone comes up to me with any questions, any of the younger athletes, I’m always happy to answer.”<\/p>\n
Liukin sees it plainly. “She is such a kind person, and she has a lot of, like, motherly qualities in her,” she said. “She’s strong, so she’ll be a good leader.”<\/p>\n
Rivera learned the part from the women who did it for her. At her first senior U.S. Championships and the Olympic Games Paris 2024<\/a>, it was Suni Lee<\/a> and Jade Carey<\/a> steadying her.<\/p>\n “They were just right there with me,” she said. “They were just like big sisters to me.”<\/p>\n This week, she found herself passing it on, telling a younger teammate, Isabella Anzola, the same kind of thing.<\/p>\n “It’s a normal day at practice, just do you,” Rivera said. “You don’t have to do anything better, anything less.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hezly Rivera’s long road to a first Worlds She’s been in this place before: U.S. champion, a likely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-590390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}