Hezly Rivera rallied to win her second straight national all-around championship behind a very strong second day in the women’s competition at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships on Sunday afternoon in Phoenix.
Rivera, who was the youngest American Olympian at the 2024 Paris Olympics at 16 — winning a gold medal in the team competition — and won the 2025 U.S. all-around title at 17, was in fourth place after the first day of competition thanks to a fall on the uneven bars, six-tenths of a point behind co-leaders Skye Blakely and Claire Pease.
She’s the first American woman not named Simone Biles to win back-to-back all-around titles since Jordyn Wieber in 2010-11.
“I wasn’t looking at the scoreboard, I was just focused on myself and my gymnastics and what I had to do,” Rivera said on the NBC Sports broadcast. “It was actually, like, stress free. I took all the pressure I could off myself because it’s not fun when you’re stressed or nervous.”
Rivera, who will head to LSU for the upcoming collegiate season, passed Pease for the lead in the third of four rotations on Sunday behind a near-perfect floor routine.
She was consistent throughout Day 2, finishing with a 56.950 score — nearly two points better than the 55.0 she tallied on Friday — to conclude with a winning score of 111.950. Pease, a 17-year-old who trains with Rivera in Plano, Texas, finished second at 110.800, and Charleigh Bullock (110.550) came in third place.
Reese Esponda (108.900) and two-time Olympic gold medalist Jade Carey (108.750) rounded out the top five.
Blakely, who competes at the University of Florida, made two mistakes during her opening-rotation floor routine to fall into fifth place and wrapped up in seventh at 107.300.
In the individual disciplines, Rivera won the balance beam national title, Pease came out on top in the uneven bars, Carey won gold in vault and Esponda finished atop the floor exercise leaderboard.
–Field Level Media
