U.S. gymnast Laurie Hernandez took the world by storm in 2016. The then 16-year-old was competing in her first season as a senior with expectations from a promising junior career.
She delivered – and then some.
The New Jersey-native made the U.S. team for the Rio Olympic Games and flipped her way to team gold and balance beam silver at those Games.
Here’s a closer look at the gymnastics superstar.
Laurie Hernandez: What’s next?
Hernandez, who recently turned 21, is likely done with competitive gymnastics. An injury at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships during warm-ups for balance beam forced her to withdraw from the event. We won't be seeing her compete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in 2021.
“It’s a little better, but even now I take a couple of steps and it’ll lock out,” Hernandez told USA Today Sports in a recent interview.
Despite the setback, Hernandez won’t be going too far from gymnastics. After watching the Tokyo Olympics, she’s joining up with Rio 2015 teammate Simone Biles’ for Biles’ Gold Across America Tour, which is visiting more than 30 cities nationwide.
From there, who knows. According to USA Today, Hernandez hasn’t given the Paris 2024 Games much thought at this point. Instead, it seems college is on her mind, with dreams of studying acting, and Columbia, Northwestern, Southern California or NYU possibilities.
Laurie Hernandez: A return to the sport was about more than just gymnastics
Hernandez’ push to return prior to the Tokyo Games was motivated by more than just a second chance at Olympic hardware.
Instead, it was about finding love and joy in the sport again. In early 2020, Hernandez came forward to speak about the emotional and verbal abuse she suffered under former coach Maggie Haney.
“I felt that sharing my story could help others, or at least raise awareness to emotional and verbal abuse,” she wrote in an Instagram post last year.
Haney was later suspended for five years by USA Gymnastics.
Hernandez says the switch to new coaching at Gym Max in Southern California rekindled her love of the sport as she’s continued to speak out about mental health issues on social media and in press interviews with the hope of encouraging others.
“I think within the last couple of years I've gotten really into openly speaking about mental health and tackling it and expressing it publicly so that way it pulls the stigma away from it,” Hernandez said after making her return to competition earlier this year.
@lauriehernandez_ ##stitch with @codyfast 🥲
♬ original sound - Laurie Hernandez
Laurie Hernandez: Instagram and TikTok star
She’s also gotten really into sharing more of personality online, including on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, where Hernandez has more than 600,000 followers. The content is a mix of funny and serious. Sometimes it’s Hernandez jumping on the latest trend in the app or an acting challenge.
Sometimes, it’s to share something much more personal.
“The red flags that you ignore… they will come back to bite you,” Hernandez said in a recent post using a prompt asking for users to share something they didn’t know when they started a self-healing journey. “According to my therapist, ignoring red flags doesn’t mean that the red flags go away, it just means that ‘congratulations, you have ignored red flags.’
“Do what you will with that information,” the post concludes.
Laurie Hernandez and the Fierce Five wins gold at Rio 2016
Hernandez captured the attention of the world at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
Bubbly, with personality spare, and floor routine that relished the Olympic spotlight, Hernandez was a sensation at those Games.
In the women’s team final, Hernandez was crucial to Team USA’s overwhelming win, adding big scores on vault, balance beam and floor exercise. She could not compete on the uneven bars due to an injury she was nursing in Rio.
After helping her country to its second-consecutive women’s gymnastics team gold medal, Hernandez came within .200 of balance beam gold in the final. She settled for silver behind the Netherland’s Sanne Wevers.
“I think this is one of the best routines that I’ve showed,” Hernandez said at the time. “I’m just happy I could perform the way I do in practice and stay calm through the whole thing.”
