Flavia Saraiva and Aleah Finnegan react as Hezly Rivera shows off customized Olympic ring necklace with her name

Hezly Rivera showed off a customized Olympic ring necklace, with each ring featuring a letter from her name. In 2024, the gymnast had a year to remember which saw her become an Olympic gold medalist as part of the United States women’s all-around team.

At the Paris Olympics, however, Rivera only competed in the qualifications and did not participate in the final. In the final, Team USA consisting of Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey delivered a brilliant performance to reclaim the gold with a total score of 171.296 points, having settled for the silver at the Tokyo Olympics.

Following her successful Olympic debut, Hezly Rivera has already kicked off her season at the 2025 Winter Cup. She recently received a necklace from Simon G. Jewelry, whose design had a similar pattern to the Olympic symbol. The letters also matched the Olympic ring colors with blue, black, and red on top, with yellow and green at the bottom. She shared glimpses of herself wearing the necklace, captioning it:

“In love with my new necklace🫶🏽 thank you so so much @simongjewelry”

Following this, Brazilian star gymnast Flavia Saraiva gushed over the necklace, commenting:

“😍”

Meanwhile, Aleah Finnegan, who represented the Philippines at the Paris Olympics and is an LSU Tigers senior, joined the comments, writing:

“So cute!!”

Screenshot of Flavia Saraiva and Aleah Finnegan’s comments. Credits - IG/ hezrivera

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Hezly Rivera on what it means for her to represent the USA on world stage

Hezly Rivera at Paris Olympics (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

In an interaction with US Weekly released in July 2024, Hezly Rivera reflected on what it meant to represent the USA on the global stage. Rivera, who has Dominican Republic roots, with both her father and mother being born in the country before immigrating to the United States, shared her pride in representing the USA, stating (0:17 onwards):

“Yeah, it means the whole world to me just competing for Team USA. Representing this country is such an honor. I've been wanting to do this ever since I was so little, so for it to finally come true is just so amazing.”

“And even the little experiences like Germany or Turkey, my first two international assignments, you know, being able to represent Team USA and being at such a high level, I think is such amazing accomplishments. So I'm very proud of myself and I think it's such an honor to be here,” she also mentioned.

After her impressive performance at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials, Hezly Rivera followed in the footsteps of Laurie Hernandez, a Latina gymnast who represented Team USA at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

In another July 2024 interview with Remezcla.com, Rivera also expressed her pride in representing the Dominican Republic and Latinas on the world stage with her qualification for the Paris Olympics.