Hezly Rivera has added to her medal collection.
The 17-year-old Dominican-American Olympic gold medalist gymnast, the youngest U.S. Olympian across all sports at the 2024 Paris Games, is now an all-around national champion.
Rivera totaled 112 points in two nights of competition in New Orleans, prevailing by eight tenths over Leanne Wong, a two-time Olympic alternate. Joscelyn Roberson, another 2024 Paris Olympics alternate, was third.
Rivera led Wong by two tenths going into the last rotation, then delivered the best floor exercise score (14.2) by anyone on either night.
“I was aware it was pretty close, right before I went on the floor, probably a minute or two,” she told NBC Sports. “It’s a little bit nerve-racking, but I just tried to trust the process and trust God and just let my body do what it knows how to do.”
While the rest of her Paris gold-medal teammates are taking this season off, Rivera took a major step in her young career by becoming the youngest U.S. all-around champion since Ragan Smith in 2017.
She’s also the first woman to win junior and senior all-around titles since Jordyn Wieber (2008 and 2011-12), as well as the sixth American woman since 2000 to pair Olympic gold with a national all-around title (Simone Biles, Wieber, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin and Carly Patterson).
Rivera, the 2023 U.S. junior all-around champ, opened the 2024 Olympic selection season by placing 24th at the U.S. Classic (about a week after her grandmother died).
She climbed to sixth in her senior U.S. Championships debut, then fifth at the Olympic Trials as some veteran gymnasts became sidelined by injuries.
Rivera was picked to be the lone rookie on the Olympic team alongside Biles, Suni Lee, Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles. She competed on uneven bars and balance beam in the qualifying round in Paris.
“My mindset is kind of like, I achieved my dreams, I achieved my goals, but I still have more (goals), so I kind of like to put that (the Olympics) in the back of my head for now,” she said in July. “Every time in the gym, I don’t think that I went to the Olympics. I’m just kind of training like I’ve almost never been, in a way.”
This week, Rivera had the highest scores on beam and floor, plus shared the bars title with Skye Blakely.
Wong, the most experienced woman in the field at 21, won vault. She was bidding to become the second non-teen in the last 50 years to win a U.S. all-around title after Biles.
Next up: a selection competition in early autumn, after which four women will be named to compete at October’s World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia. These worlds include individual events only.
The all-around winner at the selection event automatically makes it. A committee picks the other three, taking into account results at nationals and other 2025 meets.
