If you were able to correctly choose all the members of the US women’s Olympic gymnastics team before the Trials in June, well, you might want to go ahead and buy a lottery ticket right now.
That’s because the results were nearly impossible to predict, thanks to injuries that took several of the front-runners out of commission. Heading into the Trials, it looked like the team had a couple of locks for the five available team spots—Simone Biles, of course, fresh off her historic ninth national all-around title and preparing for her third Olympics, being one of them. Two-time national uneven bars champ Shilese Jones, Tokyo alternate Kayla DiCello, and Skye Blakely all seemed like they could be likely contenders as well, along with, of course, Olympic veterans like Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey, who were looking to make it to their second Games.
And then in a three-day span before and during Trials, Blakely, Jones, and DiCello were all out of the running with serious injuries: Blakely and DiCello to their Achilles and Jones to her knee.
When those gymnasts scratched from competition, what appeared to be a race for one, maybe two spots on the team suddenly opened up. By the time the Trials concluded on June 30—with Biles finishing in first place—the final team was one few would have predicted just a few days prior. Still, the talent is deep, and the team stands to make its mark in Paris.
Heading to the Summer Games will be: Biles, Lee, Chiles, Carey, and perhaps the biggest surprise, newcomer Hezly Rivera, a 16-year-old in her first year of senior elite competition who excelled on uneven bars and balance beam—two events where Team USA team sorely missed their injured gymnasts. Together, they’ll look to bring team gold back to the US once again, after the team placed second behind the Russian Olympic Committee in Tokyo.
Let’s take a closer look at the five athletes who will represent the US in women’s artistic gymnastics in Paris.
Simone Biles: Prioritizing Mental Health, Returning at the Top of Her Game
- Age: 27
- Hometown: Spring, Texas
- Key stats: A whole bunch of podium finishes at the biggest competitions in the world: Biles won her first world championship in 2013 and has since racked up a total of 37 world and Olympic medals—plus one Presidential Medal of Freedom, for good measure.
- What to watch for: Biles already has seven Olympic medals, including four golds. Should she earn more hardware in Paris, she’ll break the American record for the most Olympic medals by any gymnast, male or female.
Biles returned to the elite world just a year ago, two years after she developed the "twisties” during her vault in the team competition at Tokyo Olympic Games; she withdrew from most of the events and competed only on the balance beam (where she won bronze). While the term sounds light and fun, it’s anything but—it could be super serious: Biles lost her air awareness; she could no longer sense where she was during a skill, which could cause injury or worse.
Biles thought her career was over. In an April 2024 interview on the podcast Call Her Daddy, Biles told host Alex Cooper that she thought The world is going to hate me after she walked off the competition floor and wondered if she would be allowed back into the US without the gold medal she felt was expected of her. The combination of competing in a huge event during a global pandemic and the repressed trauma from the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal just “cracked” her, as she told Cooper.
After the Tokyo Games, Biles took time off to prioritize her mental health, including through weekly therapy sessions, and continues to speak out about the importance of doing so—something that’s definitely beneficial to the latest crop of gymnasts. In fact, she has gained a reputation as a supportive teammate, particularly to the younger gymnasts with whom she trains at World Champions Centre, the Texas gym owned by her family, and who grew up idolizing her.
Biles turned 27 this year and is the oldest American gymnast headed to the Olympics since the 1950s. But with age comes wisdom and experience: “I use the phrase, ‘aging like fine wine,’” Biles said to USA Today after her victory at US nationals. Going into Paris, Biles is proving that we’re in the new era of American gymnastics—one in which health and safety is prioritized, and athletes can compete well into their 20s as a result—and we’ll be tuning in to watch it.
Suni Lee: Defending a Gold Medal While Coping With Chronic Illness
- Age: 21
- Hometown: St. Paul, Minnesota
- Key stats: Lee was the surprise winner of the all-around gold medal at Tokyo after Biles withdrew from competition. Her podium finishes are far-reaching, ranging from the nationals to the Olympics to the NCAA.
- What to watch for: Lee has a new uneven bars skill, the laid-out full-twisting Jaeger, and if she successfully performs it at the Olympics, it will be named after her in the sport’s code of points.
Lee went from veritable obscurity to overnight fame when won the all-around competition at the Tokyo Games. That made her the first Asian American all-around Olympic champion; perhaps more importantly, she was the first Olympian, period, from the close-knit Hmong American community that is largely based in Lee’s home state, Minnesota. Her win was seen as a boost for participation in sports by Hmong girls.
After that, it was a whirlwind: Lee went from the Olympics and its accompanying media storm to Dancing With the Stars just two months later, and from there to a dorm room at Auburn University, where she had long planned to compete on the NCAA gymnastics team—something which, until very recently, used to be almost unheard of for gymnasts of Lee’s caliber. At Auburn, as she told Sports Illustrated, she had to take online classes and work with private security due to her fame, and she struggled with perfectionism in college meets, worrying that she needed to put on a gold-medal performance, or else she didn't belong there.
Then she got sick. Lee told SELF last fall that she was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease that led her to end her college gymnastics career early, forgoing NCAA nationals in 2023, and head back to Minnesota. It took her months to return to the gym, and her training still fluctuates in intensity based on how she feels.
In February, Lee returned to elite competition at the Winter Cup, and a few months later, took on the Core Hydration Classic, where she picked up a win on beam. In June, she competed in the all-around for the first time since Tokyo at US Nationals. She will very likely be chosen to do so in Paris too, giving her an opportunity to defend her Olympic title and prove, once again, that she belongs at the top.
Jordan Chiles: Hyping Up Her Team While Getting Her Work Done
- Age: 23
- Hometown: Vancouver, Washington
- Key stats: After becoming a crucial part of the four-woman silver-medal team in Tokyo, Chiles won national titles in bar and floor at the 2023 NCAA Championships and all-around bronze and vault silver at the 2023 Pan American Games.
- What to watch for: Chiles is a solid all-arounder, so look for her to be a guiding—and encouraging—force in the team competition. She could make a bars or floor final as well.
Jordan Chiles had a major gymnastics glow-up beginning in 2019 that led her to the Tokyo Olympic team. It was largely the result of a gym switch from her hometown in Washington State to the World Champions Centre in Texas, where she began training alongside Biles.
The two gymnasts became fast friends. In fact, in Tokyo, when Biles withdrew from the team final competition, it was Chiles who filled her shoes, taking her spot on bars with very little time to warm up, and following that on beam as well. The gymnast who had once struggled with consistency and nerves hit both routines under extreme pressure, allowing the US to clinch team silver.
After Tokyo, Chiles, like Lee, went the NCAA route. She began her freshman year at the University of California, Los Angeles, and quickly became a star on and off the apparatus there, becoming as well-known for energizing the audience as she was for her solid bars and dynamic floor routines—some of which went viral for her explosive tumbling to hype-up hip-hop (and even earned praise from Salt N Pepa).
But she knew she wasn’t quite done with the Olympics quite yet. Chiles deferred her junior year at UCLA to pursue her second Games training full-time in Texas. It was a risk—at one point, Chiles said she was asked to alter her floor routine, since an official didn’t think her NCAA-style routine, set to ’90s hip-hop music, would score well internationally, as she told GymCastic.
Ultimately, however, Chiles was able to reach a performance compromise—“I changed it where I could still enjoy having the college fun Jordan with the elite Jordan,” as she told GymCastic, and make the Olympic team. In Paris, her enthusiasm, consistency—and ability to hype up her teammates to help them go all-out—will be a major asset to the US team’s quest for gold.
Jade Carey: Seeking a Title Repeat—And a Redemption
- Age: 24
- Hometown: Phoenix, Arizona
- Key stats: Carey’s won medals at the Olympics, Worlds (team gold and vault silver), Nationals (including bronze on vault this year), and NCAA Championships (all-around and vault silver, and floor bronze).
- What to watch for: Carey tripped on her vault run in Tokyo and finished a devastating last place, but ended her Games with a triumphant gold medal on floor. So we bet she’ll be looking to defend her floor title, while also seeking redemption on vault.
If Chiles is the dynamic cheerleader of the Paris team, Jade Carey is its quiet, steady guiding force. But like Chiles, she had her own dramatic gymnastics trajectory: In 2016, she was a high-level college recruit who had never considered the elite side of the sport; by 2021, she was an Olympic gold medalist. You probably wouldn’t call her flashy, but when you watch her floor routine, you can’t help but notice she throws the most difficult acrobatic skills in the world this side of Biles.
She charted her own path to the Tokyo Olympics, competing at World Cups until she nabbed an individual spot for the US. But she was on her own, unable to share in the team medal there. Now at her second Games, she’ll be getting the full experience as a full-fledged part of the five-woman team in Paris.
That’s key, because—if her performance as part of Oregon State's gymnastics squad over the last three years is any indication—she thrives as part of a close-knit team. Unlike Lee, who left college gymnastics altogether, and Chiles, who deferred a year to train for the Olympics, Carey competed for the Beavers all season, building on the consistency and calmness under pressure that are her hallmarks in the elite world.
But make no mistake: As stellar a teammate as she’s sure to be, Carey probably has some individual goals in mind too. We bet she’s coming for that vault medal she missed in Tokyo, and she’s got a floor medal to defend as well.
Hezly Rivera: Joining the Senior Elite World in Spectacular Fashion
- Age: 16
- Hometown: Oradell, New Jersey
- Key stats: The 2023 US junior national champion, Rivera also took bronze in the all-around at the 2024 Winter Cup.
- What to watch for: Paris will be Rivera’s first Olympics—she was likely selected for the team because of her strong bars and beam, so look for her to contribute in the team final on those events.
Hezly Rivera was this year’s wild card. The first-year senior elite competitor with just a few big meets under her belt showed a newfound consistency coupled with her usual excellent execution—and a few well-placed big skills—to nudge her way onto the Paris team. Rivera told the Olympic Channel that she treated the Trials like just another meet. And it probably would have been just that for her until several frontrunners were lost to injury and she became a top prospect herself.
Rivera is the youngest member of the Paris gymnastics team by five years, although 30 years ago she probably would have been considered at her gymnastics prime. Now, as the average age of Team USA team climbing back into the 20s shows, if Rivera wants it, she can have a lengthy elite and college career ahead of her. It just so happens that the Olympic Games—the sport’s biggest stage—will be the starting block.
“The roster is amazing.” Rivera told the Olympic Channel. “They’ll be able to mentor me and help me so much, especially not just during the competition, but throughout the whole process.” Whether that guidance will include driving lessons from her teammate Simone Biles, who joked with the media following the Olympic Trials about it, we'll have to wait and see.
Beep, beep. Look out for Rivera; she’ll be a name you will remember for a long time.
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