Sports

(NEW YORK) — Of the nearly 600 American athletes representing the red, white and blue at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Hezly Rivera will make history as the youngest athlete to compete for Team USA.

The New Jersey-born gymnast secured her spot on the highly competitive women’s team — led by Simone Biles — with a gold medal winning balance beam performance at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Minnesota last month.

Meet the youngest athlete on Team USA, Hezly Rivera

Ahead of the first women’s gymnastics qualifying event on Sunday, July 28, the first-time Olympian spoke to ABC News’ Good Morning America about what it means to be part of the impressive five-woman roster alongside 2020 Tokyo veterans Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey.

“It feels incredible — this doesn’t have to happen too often, so I’m very excited to be the youngest team member of the group,” Rivera, 16, said. “I felt so happy and super excited because this is what I’ve been working for my whole life. So for it to finally come true is so exciting and so surreal.”

Team USA’s rising star may be the rookie of the team, but Rivera is going into the competition with confidence.

“I need to trust myself and trust my training, because my muscle memory is there and it’s very strong,” she said. “I just have to do what I do in the gym. And I know everything will be perfect.”

While Rivera doesn’t know which events she’ll be competing in at the Games just yet, she told GMA that in practice she’s training for “vault, bars, beam and floor.”

Rivera’s sister was the first person who picked up on her early enthusiasm for gymnastics “because from a very young age, I was already doing cartwheels and handstands and bridges everywhere.”

But it wasn’t until she attended a friends’ fifth birthday party at a local gym, where she recalled “flipping around on all the equipment” and said, “the coaches told my parents that they should put me — on a little mini team — and that I had potential.”

Hezly Rivera facts and career highlights

National Competition Results
2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Minneapolis, Minn: Gold in balance beam; 4th in uneven bars; 5th in all-around; 8th in floor exercise
2024 Winter Cup, Louisville, Ky: Gold in balance beam; bronze medalist in all-around and floor exercise
2023 Xfinity U.S. Gymnastics Championships, San Jose, Calif: Gold in all-around, uneven bars and balance beam
2023 Winter Cup, Louisville, Ky.: Gold all-around, balance beam and floor exercise
2022 OOFOS U.S. Gymnastics Championships, Tampa, Fla: Bronze in floor exercise
2022 U.S. Classic, Salt Lake City, Utah: Gold in balance beam; silver in all around and floor exercise
2022 Winter Cup, Frisco, Texas: Bronze in all-around
2018 Hopes Classic, Salt Lake City, Utah: Gold in floor exercise

International Competition Results
2024 Jesolo Trophy, Jesolo, Italy: Bronze in team competition
2023 Junior World Championships, Antalya, Turkey: Silver in team competition
2022 DTB Pokal Cup, Stuttgart, Germany: Gold in team competition

Nickname: Hez
Birthday: June 4, 2008
Hometown: Oradell, NJ
High School Graduation Year: 2026
Year she began gymnastics: 2013
Favorite Event: Bars
Parents: Henry Rivera and Heidy Ruiz, who are both from the Dominican Republic
Siblings: Hanly Rivera and Carhelis Abreu
Favorite school subject: Math
Hobbies or favorite activities: Shopping
Favorite book: Mamba Mentality
Favorite movie: Spy Kids 2
Favorite Food: Rice and beans with chicken and avocado 

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(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

INTERLEAGUE
Miami Marlins 6, Baltimore Orioles 3
N.Y. Mets 12, N.Y. Yankees 3
Minnesota Twins 5, Philadelphia Phillies 4
Arizona Diamondbacks 8, Kansas City Royals 6
Colorado Rockies 20, Boston Red Sox 7

AMERICAN LEAGUE
Cleveland Guardians 2, Detroit Tigers 1
L.A. Angels 2, Seattle Mariners 1
Toronto Blue Jays 6, Tampa Bay Rays 3
Texas Rangers 10, Chicago White Sox 2
Houston Astros 8, Oakland Athletics 1

NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati Reds 9, Atlanta Braves 4 (Gm 1 Doubleheader, Gm 2 PPD)
San Diego Padres 12, Washington Nationals 3
Pittsburgh Pirates 5, St. Louis Cardinals 0
Milwaukee Brewers 3, Chicago Cubs 2
San Francisco Giants 8, Los Angeles Dodgers 3

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(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

INTERLEAGUE
Miami Marlins 6, Baltimore Orioles 3
N.Y. Mets 3, N.Y. Yankees 2
Philadelphia Phillies 3, Minnesota Twins 0
Arizona Diamondbacks 6, Kansas City Royals 2
Boston Red Sox 6, Colorado Rockies 0

AMERICAN LEAGUE
Cleveland Guardians 5, Detroit Tigers 4
L.A. Angels 5, Seattle Mariners 1
Tampa Bay Rays 4, Toronto Blue Jays 2
Texas Rangers 3, Chicago White Sox 2
Houston Astros 2, Oakland Athletics 8

NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati Reds At Atlanta Braves (PPD)
San Diego Padres, 4 Washington Nationals 0
St. Louis Cardinals 2, Pittsburgh Pirates 1
Milwaukee Brewers 1, Chicago Cubs 0
San Francisco Giants 2, Los Angeles Dodgers 5

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(NEW YORK) — American gymnast Simone Biles is considered by many to be the G.O.A.T — the Greatest Of All Time — and for good reason.

“I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I’m the first Simone Biles,” she told reporters at the 2016 Olympics.

Here’s a look at Biles’ historic gymnastics career thus far as she heads to her third Olympic Games, this year in Paris, France:

Most decorated gymnast of all time

Her rise to fame began in the wake of the 2012 Olympics, which Biles was too young to qualify for.

In 2013, at the age of 16, she secured four medals — two golds — in her first appearance at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

In 2014, she won four golds and a silver at the competition. In 2015, she scored another four gold medals and a bronze. In 2018, she won four golds, one silver, and one bronze. In 2019, she won five gold medals. In 2023, she won four golds and one silver.

Overall, she’s scored 30 world titles, 23 as a gold medal winner, according to the official Olympics website.

In her first Olympic Games in 2016, Biles won four gold medals and one bronze. In Tokyo, she won one silver and one bronze before sitting out for the rest of the competition to focus on her mental and physical health.

Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history — male or female — according to the Olympics. In all, she has 37 world and Olympic medals combined.

She has five moves named after her

Biles now has five signature moves named after her in three different events: on the floor, on vault, and on the balance beam.

“Many people aren’t even attempting to do them because there’s such high difficulty high risk maneuvers, and she does them with complete ease and effort,” Dominique Dawes, a three-time Olympian and 18-year gymnastics veteran. “It’s amazing to watch what she’s doing. And she does it with a smile on her face.”

For a move to be named after an athlete in gymnastics, the gymnast has to submit a video of them performing the move to the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique Women’s Technical Committee.

The committee determines the difficulty of the skill, and if it receives a high enough difficulty score, it is then eligible to be named.

Then, a gymnast must perform the move without “a major fault” at an international competition.

The “Biles on the floor” — first successfully completed by Biles on the world stage in 2013 at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships — is a double layout with a half-twist, which means that her body remains straight and elongated as she flips twice.

Her second signature move on the floor, “Biles II,” was first successfully completed on the world stage in 2019. For this move, Biles performs a triple-double, meaning she Biles flips twice while twisting three times before hitting the ground.

The Biles on the vault is a round-off, into a back hand-spring with a half turn, completing the move by twisting twice in a somersault. It one of the most difficult vaults in women’s artistic gymnastics, with a difficulty score of 6.4.

Biles II on the vault is the most recent move to be named after the athlete. In 2023, she became the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike, a move that consists of a backflip off the vault and two full rotations in a pike position before landing.

The Biles on the balance beam, completed in 2019, features a double-double dismount from the beam — two flips and two twists.

Dawes was a gymnast during the old ways of scoring — which is when gymnasts aimed simply for a “perfect 10.” Now, gymnasts are scored on two metrics — the perfect 10 of execution and the open-ended scoring of difficulty that gymnasts have free reign of collecting points on.

Dawes said that with the old way of scoring, there was “no need to push yourself beyond that value.” Now, “sky is the limit” for athletes like Biles.

“It really is Simone versus herself.” Dawes said. “That’s really what makes her one of the greatest of all time … Back then they used to cap our scores. And so now with this new scoring system, the sky is the limit for athletes like Simone, who’s very talented. And so if she does a higher, difficult maneuver on any of the different pieces of apparatus, she’ll actually get credit for it.”

Prioritizing her mental and physical health

Simone Biles pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics before finishing the individual all-around competition and the team final following a shocking stumble on vault.

“We wholeheartedly support Simone’s decision and applaud her bravery in prioritizing her well-being. Her courage shows, yet again, why she is a role model for so many,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement.

Her exit shined a light on mental health among elite athletes who face intense pressures as the world watches. She later also discussed how her exit was tied to her struggle to recover mentally after being sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar.

Biles has also been outspoken about experiencing depression and having to take anxiety medication in the fallout of the Nassar abuse.

“As a recent competitor in the Tokyo Games who was a survivor of this horror, I can assure you the impacts of this man’s abuse are not over or ever forgotten,” Biles said at a 2021 Congressional hearing. “The announcement in the spring of 2020 that the Tokyo Games were to be postponed for a year meant that I would be going to the gym, to training, to therapy, living daily among the reminders of this story for another 365 days.”

Biles qualified in all six of the women’s gymnastics finals at the Tokyo Olympics and was expected to win an unprecedented six gold medals. The goal was to become the first woman since 1968 to win back-to-back titles in the all-around.

“I just never felt like this going into a competition before,” Biles said at a press conference Tuesday following the team final. “I tried to go out here and have fun, and warm up in the back went a little bit better, but once I came out here I was like, ‘No, mental is not there.’”

“It’s been really stressful this Olympic Games, just as a whole,” said Biles to reporters at the time. “It’s been a long week. It’s been a long Olympic process. It’s been a long year.”

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(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Monday’s sports events:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

AMERICAN LEAGUE
N.Y. Yankees 9, Tampa Bay Rays 1
Detroit Tigers 8, Cleveland Guardians 2
Texas Rangers 4, Chicago White Sox 3
Oakland Athletics 4, Houston Astros 0
Los Angeles Angels 3, Seattle Mariners 1

NATIONAL LEAGUE
Pittsburgh Pirates 2, St. Louis Cardinals 1
Final N.Y. Mets 6, Miami Marlins 4
Final Cincinnati Reds 4, Atlanta Braves 1
Final Chicago Cubs 3, Milwaukee Brewers 1
San Francisco Giants 2, Los Angeles Dodgers 3

INTERLEAGUE
Minnesota Twins 7, Philadelphia Phillies 2
Kansas City Royals 10, Arizona Diamondbacks 4
Boston Red Sox 8, Colorado Rockies 9

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(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

INTERLEAGUE
San Diego 2, Cleveland 1
Minnesota 7, Milwaukee 8
Boston 6, LA Dodgers 9

AMERICAN LEAGUE
Baltimore 2, Texas 3
Chicago White Sox 1, Kansas City 4
Detroit 4, Toronto 5
NY Yankees 4, Tampa Bay 6

NATIONAL LEAGUE
San Francisco 3, Colorado 2
Arizona 1, Chicago Cubs 2
NY Mets 2, Miami 4
St Louis 6, Atlanta 2
Philadelphia 6, Pittsburgh 0
Cincinnati 2, Washington 5

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(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Thursday’s sports events:

WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION

Minnesota Lynx 86, Atlanta Dream 79
Dallas Wings 101, Indiana Fever 93
 

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(ARLINGTON, Texas) — Ingrid Andress is apologizing for her rendition of the national anthem at the 2024 Home Run Derby on Monday night that has since gone viral online.

“I’m not gonna b——- y’all, I was drunk last night,” Andress wrote in a statement posted to Instagram on Tuesday, referring to her performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.

Jelly Roll, Shaboozey and more country stars reveal best advice they ever received

“I’m checking myself into a facility today to get the help I need,” she continued. “That was not me last night. I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much for that rendition. I’ll let y’all know how rehab is I hear it’s super fun. xo, Ingrid.”

Andress, a four-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, is best known for her song “More Hearts Than Mine” and her Sam Hunt collaboration “Wishful Drinking.”

According to her website, Andress’ next shows are both at music festivals, Aug. 3 at Basilica Block Party in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Oct. 4 at Country Calling in Ocean City, Maryland.

“Good Morning America” has reached out to Andress’ representative for comment.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service.

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(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

INTERLEAGUE
Oakland 18, Philadelphia 3
Detroit 4, LA Dodgers 3
Pittsburgh 9, Chi White Sox 4
San Francisco 3, Minnesota 2
Toronto 8, Arizona 7

AMERICAN LEAGUE
Baltimore 6, NY Yankees 5
Tampa Bay 2, Cleveland 0
Boston 5, Kansas City 4
Texas 4, Houston 2
LA Angels 3, Seattle 2

NATIONAL LEAGUE
Miami 3, Cincinnati 2
Chi Cubs 8, St. Louis 3
Colorado 8, NY Mets 5
Milwaukee 9, Washington 3
Atlanta 6, San Diego 3

WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Connecticut 96, Phoenix 69
Las Vegas 89, Washington 77
Indiana 81, Minnesota 74
Seattle 81, Atlanta 70

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Meandering within the manicured lawns and historic courts of Wimbledon are Rufus and Flo, a couple who are incredibly popular with players and fans alike, yet simultaneously unassuming and vital workers whose sole function is to keep the public safe and the tennis uninterrupted.

With a combined 20 years of experience working at Wimbledon, they know exactly what they are doing when they start work each day of the two-week tournament in southwest London: Rufus watches the skies while Flo keeps an eye on the grounds.

The biggest difference about Rufus and Flo, compared to most of the other employees at Wimbledon, is that Rufus is a 16-year-old hawk and Flo is a 4-year-old Labrador Retriever.

Rufus, famous in his own right with over 5,000 followers on Instagram and has also been called “the world’s most notable bird” and “one of Britain’s best-known birds” in the media, has a singular responsibility — keep Wimbledon clear of pigeons at all costs.

“Rufus is ‘Chief Pigeon Deterrent’ here at Wimbledon,” Donna Davis told ABC News while standing on Centre Court on the middle Sunday of the 2024 Championships. “Often the pigeons can go up in the rafters and then sneak around and build little nests. They generally have a really comfortable time up there and then come down when the grass seed has been laid to munch on the seed. It’s like caviar to them. Rufus is here to stop all of that.”

Davis shares a unique bond with Rufus that is built on trust as well as her keen understanding of avian behavior and Rufus’ training relies heavily on food motivation.

“We build up that loyalty and trust, ensuring I always have food for him,” says Davis. “He even does what I call his ‘Wimbledon wiggle’ — which is when he shakes his tail before he flies off.”

Though essentially a wild bird, Rufus is trained to return to Davis, seeing her as his most reliable food source. Davis also makes sure to maintain Rufus at the right weight, something that is crucial to their relationship and ensures that he finds returning to Davis more appealing than expending energy hunting for his own meals.

Davis has worked at Wimbledon now with Rufus and his predecessor, Hamish, for 24 years this year but her career at the All England Club all began because she saw a solution to a massive problem that she noticed while watching the 1999 Wimbledon men’s semifinal between Pete Sampras and Tim Henman.

“During that match, the pigeons kept coming down to Centre Court in between points to munch on the seed that had been laid and Sampras kept having to bat them off the baseline with his racquet,” Davis told ABC News. “And of course at that critical point, if you’re getting distracted, that’s the last thing you need, and it can cost you the game or the match. So I was watching and I was thinking, ‘I’m going to give them a call.’ I did exactly that and they said, ‘come down, show us what you can do’ and here we are, 24 years later.”

Meanwhile, Flo, the 4-year-old Labrador Retriever, has a complimentary — but no less important — role to Rufus as she patrols the grounds to keep the perimeter of the 42-acre complex secure and the more than half-a-million people who come to Wimbledon each year safe.

Image

Training a dog like Flo for her specific role is an intensive process, her owner and handler Mark Millsand told ABC News.

Her handler explains that it typically takes about ten weeks of intensive, but relatively quick, training to get dogs like Flo up to speed with the kind of work they are doing, the process designed to ensure that the dogs are sufficiently prepared for their roles — much like passing a driving test but gaining proficiency through experience.

Flo’s working day at Wimbledon is long and demanding. Spanning around 12 intense working hours. Millsand ensures she gets regular breaks to prevent overheating and he says that keeping her alert and ready to respond at a moment’s notice is crucial, especially if a sudden search operation is required.

However, Flo does have plenty of opportunities to interact with the public on their walks and she has quickly become a favorite among visitors.

“We have a lot of returning visitors here every year,” said Millsand. ”They seem to remember the dogs. They get a glazed recollection of our faces and then they think, Oh, I remember Flo.”

Flo might be a working dog with an intense focus on her daily duties but she can’t pull a fast one on Millsand, who is more than just her handler because Flo is a family dog, a pet first and foremost.

“She is absolutely not this well behaved all of the time,” Millsand joked. “Unfortunately, she is very fond of strawberries, which means this is the wrong environment for her to be in with Wimbledon’s strawberries and cream. If she sees people eating strawberries, she can get very friendly.”

Not to be outdone by Rufus, even though Flo doesn’t have an Instagram account, she has had plenty of brushes with fame herself and got to meet Her Majesty Queen Camilla at The Championships last year.

Each of them also, notably, have side hustles. Flo will patrol football matches and sets of television shows while Rufus can be seen high above the skies in central London keeping Westminster Abbey free from pesky pigeons.

Historically, animals have been present at Wimbledon, acting as vital employees since before the tournament was founded in 1877. In the early years of the tournament, ponies and horses were used to level the surface of the grass to a pristine standard by pulling a large roller, even wearing leather boots so as not to trample the freshly smooth surface or damage the grass.

But not all creatures have been so warmly welcomed at Wimbledon over the years, like back in 1982 when a swarm of bees in disrupted the second set of the third round match between Americans Pam Shriver and Kathy Rinaldi, engulfing both of them. Rinaldi was stung on the arm and Shriver, quite considerately, removed the sting.

Over the years, Wimbledon has also had interruptions by squirrels — in 1949 during the match between Hans van Swol of the Netherlands and Frenchman Bobby Abdesselam — sparrows, during the 1989 men’s semifinal between Stefan Edberg and John McEnroe, and — in the days before Rufus and Hamish — a mouse even interrupted play during the 1998 first round matchup between Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Mark Philippoussis.

For now, Rufus and Flo work in tandem, steadfast guardians of this tournament, making sure the competition can unfold as seamlessly as possible.

Their teamwork, however, involves a great irony. Rufus and Flo do not get along. At all.

“Rufus and the search dogs are not friends,” laughed Millsand. “I think it’s a healthy awareness of each other, but Flo wouldn’t stand a chance against Rufus even though she thinks she does, but she wouldn’t. I’d love to go over and talk to Donna Davis and have a chat with her about Rufus but we just can’t get close enough.”

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