Once again, the beam will have proven itself a justice of the peace. On the 2nd day of the US Trials, Sunday in Minneapolis, even the exercise world champion, star Simone Biles, fell. And in her wake, the Olympic champion Sunisa Lee, who had nevertheless achieved the best score on Friday, and the solid Jordan Chiles. However, these errors did not prevent these three young women from finishing in the first three places in the two all-around competitions.
Aged 27, 21 and 23 respectively, they have been selected to compete in the Paris Games, as has Jade Carey (24). A breath of fresh air will blow over this experienced quartet, who were already on the trip to Tokyo in 2021, thanks to the fifth member of the American selection, the amazing 16-year-old teenager Hezly Rivera.
“I have the feeling that we all had more to give and that our performances in Tokyo were not the best”
“This is definitely our time of redemption, said Biles, who totaled 58.325 points on Sunday, following Friday’s 58.90. I feel like we all had more to give and that our performances in Tokyo weren’t the best. The circumstances were special but I feel like we had a lot of weight on our shoulders coming here and to prove that we are all better athletes. »
Obviously, the four-time Olympic champion, who will compete in Paris for her third Games, recalls that in Japan, victim of twisties, these losses of figures in space, she had to forfeit all the finals, except the balance beam, where she won a bronze medal. Carey, crowned on floor, had refused a takeoff on vault and thus lost all hope of winning another gold medal. Lee, crowned in the all-around, has since fought to come back, notably due to kidney problems… All hope to regain the Olympic team title which they had abandoned to the Russians in Tokyo.
To accompany them, we note that certain evidence has disappeared: vice-champion of the United States, two weeks ago, Skye Blakely was injured on the eve of the Trials and suffered from a ruptured Achilles tendon , just like Kayla DiCello, while Shilese Jones, bronze medalist in the all-around at the 2023 Worlds, also had to withdraw after damaging her knee on Friday. It was therefore the young Hezly Rivera, 16 years old, who was selected, particularly for her performances on bars and beam.
The teenager had long trained with Maggie Haney, who guided Laurie Hernandez to the Olympic team title in 2016. But with the coach suspended for five years for verbal and emotional abuse of her athletes, Hezly Rivera and her family moved to Texas, where the gymnast now works with Valeri Liukin, the first man to perform a triple backflip on the floor in 1987, and who guided his daughter, Nastia Liukin, to the Olympic title in 2008.
