This Garden State gal is going for the gold.
Hezly Rivera, a teen from Oradell, New Jersey, unexpectedly secured a spot on the U.S. women’s gymnastics team last month after finishing fifth all-around at the Olympic Trials in Minnesota.
Rivera just turned 16, making her the youngest member of a team full of Olympic veterans in their 20s — including four-time gold medalist Simone Biles, 27, and 2021 All Around gold medalist Sunisa Lee, 21.
Hezly was hardly a favorite but she seized the moment when fellow young hopefuls Skye Blakely, 19, and Kayla DiCello, 20, suffered injuries. Her impressive performance included earning 27.975 point across two balance beam routines — besting both Biles and Lee on the apparatus and tying for the top score with Joscelyn Roberson.
“It feels so surreal,” Hezly told NBC’s “TODAY” show of the moment she’s dreamed about since age 8. “It’s just all my hard work has been paying off. I’m so excited.”
Biles and the other women on the team, which also includes Jordan Chiles, 23, and Jade Carey, 24, have welcomed Hezly and taken her under their wing. There have already been team lunches, swimming pool hangs and a Fourth of July celebration.
“She’s so young. She can’t even drive! Should we teach her how to drive before we get to Paris?” Biles joked affectionately of Hezly in an interview with Hoda Kotb on “Today.”
The newly minted Olympic gymnast showed natural talent from a young age. Her father, Henry Rivera, 44, recalled taking her to a birthday party at a gymnastics gym at age 5 and drawing attention for her casual cartwheels and flips.
“The coaches approached us,” Henry told The Post. “They said, ‘You got to bring her in.’ She made the team on the first audition. That’s very unusual.”
Soon she was hooked on the sport, practicing for hours at ENA Gymnastics in Paramus.
“All she ever wanted to do was be in the gym,” said Henry.
She ended up training with future college stars four years her senior, including Instagram phenom and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model Olivia Dunne, 21, who went to Louisiana State University, and star University of Alabama gymnast Corinne Bunagan, 21.
“Hezly was the little one in the group who would just keep up with them. She was just always very, very special and had a sparkle in her eye that is still there,” Jennifer Zappa, head coach and co-owner of ENA Gymnastics, told The Post.
By age 8, she started homeschooling so she could practice more intensively.
“We said ‘this is it. This is going to be our life — there’s no looking back,’” Henry, a computer engineer, recalled.
Two and a half years ago, the family — which also includes mom Heidy Ruiz, younger brother Hanly Rivera and older sister Carhelis Abreu — moved from New Jersey to Plano, Texas, so that Hezly could train under Valeri Liukin, the father of five-time Olympic medalist Nastia Liukin and coach to three-time Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas.
At one point, Henry gave his daughter a copy of Kobe Bryant’s book, “The Mamba Mentality: How I Play.” The late Los Angeles Lakers’ legendary drive served as an inspiration.
“Her ticket was always outworking everyone. Her mentality was almost that ‘mamba mentality.’ If you want something – you go for it. It’s never going to be handed [to you], especially being a Latina,” said Henry, who is from the Dominican Republic.
After all he and the family have sacrificed to support Hezly, he was quite emotional at the trials. After it was announced that his daughter had made the team, the camera panned to him, wiping away tears in the stands.
“I couldn’t hold back,” he said. “We’re still pinching ourselves … I told her nobody could take this away from you.”
