Who is Laurie Hernandez? All about Simone Biles' former gold medal-winning teammate from Rio Olympics who has become a commentator for Paris 2024

By Neelabhra Roy

Modified Jul 30, 2024 20:14 GMT

Laurie Hernandez is a former gymnast who was one of Simone Biles teammates at the 2016 Rio Olympics. She has since retired from gymnastics and is currently a commentator for the NBC at the ongoing Paris Olympics.

Hernandez first became a part of the USA senior gymnastics team in 2016 and she later represented them in that year's edition of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, aged just 16. She was part of the famous "Final Five" team that comprised of Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas and Madison Kocian.

Laurie Hernandez competed in three events of the team final in Rio 2016, namely, vault, balance beam and floor exercise, finishing with a total score of 45.166, as the United States beat out the likes of Russia and China to win the team event.

Additionally, she also competed in the balance beam event and ended up winning silver, finishing narrowly behind Netherlands' Sanne Wevers and ahead of Simone Biles, who clinched bronze.

Later in 2016, Hernandez also competed in "Dancing With Stars", where she teamed up with Val Chmerkovskiy. The pair went on win, thus making the Olympic medalist the show's youngest-ever winner at just 16 years of age.

In 2021, Laurie Hernandez competed at the Winter Cup and U.S. Classic, during which, she fell off the balance beam. Later that year, she was unable to feature at the U.S. Championships due to a knee issue, thus missing out on the trials for the Tokyo Olympics.

Hernandez eventually retired from elite gymnastics that year after featuring in the Simone Biles-starring Gold Over America tour. In 2023, she started attending New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

This year, the 24-year-old was added to NBC's list of commentators for the gymnastics event at Paris Olympics 2024 alongside Justin Spring, with the duo joining Rich Lerner, who is the play-by-play commentator.

Laurie Hernandez on Team USA in team and individual finals at Paris Olympics 2024

Laurie Hernandez during an MLB fixture (Source: Getty)

Laurie Hernandez recently spoke of the women's gymnastics team after they qualified for the team final at Paris Olympics 2024. The 24-year-old said that the team was good to go in the team final while a lot more of the gymnasts would be seen in individual finals.

"Team USA is a lock and good to go in terms of team finals. We're going to be seeing a lot more USA athletes in individual event finals," Hernandez said (as quoted by Women's Health).

The United States did end up winning the women's gymnastics team final thanks to impressive performances from Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey.

They won gold ahead of Italy and Brazil, who finished second and third, respectively.