Laurie Hernandez

Laurie Hernandez
Laurie Hernandez with the gold medal in the team all-around at the 2016 Olympic Summer Games
Personal information
Surname:	Lauren Hernandez
Nationality:	United States
discipline	Apparatus gymnastics
Society:	MG Elite (Monmouth Gymnastics & Cheer Academy)
Trainer:	Maggie Haney
Birthday:	June 9, 2000
Place of birth:	New Brunswick , New Jersey , USA
Size:	153 cm
Weight:	48 kg
Medals
Olympic games gold 2016 Rio de Janeiro Team all-around silver 2016 Rio de Janeiro Balance beam Pacific Rim Championships gold 2016 Everett Team all-around

Lauren "Laurie" Hernandez (born June 9, 2000 in New Brunswick , New Jersey ) is an American gymnast . At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro , she won silver on the balance beam and gold in the team all-around competition.

life and career

Career start

Laurie Hernandez was born on June 9, 2000 to Wanda, an elementary school social worker , and Anthony Hernandez, a legal clerk at the New York Supreme Court , in the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey, where she was with her siblings Jelysa and Marcus grew up. Her older siblings are also active in sports; Her sister Jelysa, who is around eleven years older than her, has a black belt in karate and her brother, Marcus, who is around four years older, is active as a track and field athlete, especially in the 4 x 400 meter relay . At the age of five years, which began Puerto ricanischstämmige Hernandez, whose grandparents from Puerto Rico come, her career as a gymnast when she was notified of her mother at a gymnastics club. Before that, she had already been in a ballet class for over a year, but that bored her and that's why she switched to gymnastics. Since then she has been training at Monmouth Gymnastics & Cheer Academy , a few miles south of her home town of Old Bridge Township , just a few miles from New Brunswick, in the small town of Morganville . She is now part of the MG Elite team, which has already produced some outstanding gymnasts, including Jazmyn Foberg and Riley McCusker , who are both about the same age as Hernandez.

It was not until the age of seven that she began more serious training in so-called recreational classes , where she also got her nickname Laurie , as other girls with the first name Lauren were also represented in the courses . It was here that she was discovered early in her career by Maggie Haney , an outstanding college gymnast and later coach. Haney had not yet trained an elite gymnast and Laurie Hernandez was to become her first protégé on the way to becoming an elite gymnast . When Hernandez was nine years old, her trainer tried to place her in development training camps run by USA Gymnastics , the national association of American gymnasts. Here gymnasts are only accepted if they have passed through the so-called Talent Opportunity Program , which measures basic gymnastics skills and physical aptitude. The association then informed Haney that her protégé was currently number 1 in the country and was accordingly immediately invited to a training camp.

2012 and 2013

After years in the offspring, she made the leap into the elite in 2012 when she finished eleventh in the junior division at the US Classic in Chicago , Illinois . Through the US Classic, she qualified for the USA Gymnastics National Championships , the national championships in US gymnastics, where she finished 21st in the all-around competition after two days. These included a sixth place in the floor exercise and a seventh place on the balance beam . Still disappointed by this, she finished second in the all-around event as a 13-year-old the following year and won the gold medal on the floor. Further placements were an eighth place in the jump and a sixth place in the individual all-around; She also competed on the uneven bars and was in all of these competitions in the Junior Division . In the same year she also took part in the Parkettes Invitational in Allentown , Pennsylvania , where she reached first place on the uneven bars and was also used on the balance beam or on the floor. In the jump she was third and also received a passable rating in the individual all-around. Hernandez also had other national appearances in 2013 at the American Classics in Huntsville , Texas . There she was ranked 3rd on the vault, ranked 7th on the uneven bars, ranked 1 on the balance beam and was also used on the balance beam. In the individual all-around it was enough for second place.

She completed another national meeting in the course of the USA Gymnastics National Championships , which were held under the sponsor name P&G Championships . At the meeting in Hartford , Connecticut , she participated again in the Junior Division , where she came in second place in the individual all-around. Furthermore, she reached rank 3 on the balance beam and rank 5 on the vault and also took part in the uneven bars and on the floor. Her international appearances this year include the International Junior Gymnastics Competition in Yokohama , Japan , where she came third in the individual all- around competition . She achieved a fourth place on the floor and a sixth on the balance beam; she was also in action during the jump. In the same year she took part in the International Junior Mexican Cup , which she finished in second place behind her compatriot Bailie Key in the individual all- around . In the team all-round competition, the Americans achieved first place.

2014

Laurie Hernandez missed the entire competition year 2014 due to an injury after breaking her wrist at the beginning of 2014. Shortly afterwards she dislocated her right kneecap, which led to a rupture of the patellar tendon and a crushing of the medial collateral ligament , after which she needed the entire rest of the year to get back to her previous level. After this injury, which she sustained at the jump, she was operated on and part of the damaged ligament was replaced by a transplant. This was followed by six months without any missions before she started training again.

2015

With the beginning of the competition year 2015 her successes returned, where she celebrated a debut made to measure and nothing was noticeable of her injury from the previous year. So she was in all four tournaments, two national and two international, in which she participated this year, each first in the individual all-around. In July 2015 she again took part in the Junior Division at the US Classic in Chicago, where, in addition to the aforementioned first place in the individual all-around, she also emerged as the winner on the jump and on the uneven bars and took second place on the floor and on the balance beam. She also took part in the Junior Division at the USA Gymnastics National Championships in Indianapolis , Indiana , where, two weeks after her 15th birthday, she took first place on the uneven bars in addition to the already mentioned first place in the individual all-around competition. She also won silver on the floor and bronze on the balance beam and on the vault.

The international missions this year include the Trofeo Città di Jesolo in March 2015, which she finished with the Americans in first place in the team all-around competition of the Junior Division . Here she achieved first place in the individual all-around competition in the junior ranking, with her compatriot Simone Biles taking first place in the senior ranking. She achieved further gold medals at this event on the uneven bars and on the floor. In the same year (September 2015) the International Junior Japan Meet in Yokohama followed for her , where she again won gold in the individual all-around as well as on the jump and on the ground. For silver medals it was enough on the balance beam and on the uneven bars.

2016

Laurie Hernandez at the 2016 Olympic Summer Games

The US gymnasts celebrate their Olympic gold medal in the team all-around competition; Laurie Hernandez is number 393.

In the following year 2016, Laurie Hernandez, now part of the Senior International Elite, made her official senior debut. Among other things, she was present at the Trofeo Città di Jesolo in March 2016, where she won the bronze medal in the individual all-around with 58.550 points behind two compatriots ( Ragan Smith and Gabby Douglas ). Hernandez also received the silver medal on the vault and the gold medal on the balance beam, where she ranked ahead of Ragan Smith and Aly Raisman . In April 2016 she then took part in the Pacific Rim Championships in Everett , Washington , where she won the gold medal in the team all-around with the US gymnasts around Aly Raisman, Ragan Smith, Simone Biles and Brenna Dowell . In the individual all-around event she was third behind Biles and Raisman, but was not awarded a bronze medal due to a regulation that only allowed two athletes in a country to win a medal. The fourth placed Nagi Kajita from Japan received her bronze medal instead. Hernandez would also have qualified for the final on the balance beam, but was spared by USA Gymnastics together with her colleague Simone Biles, since both were nominated for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and were therefore spared. A knee injury inflicted shortly thereafter put Hernandez out of action for six weeks before starting training again in June.

In the same month she took part in the US Classic in Hartford, Connecticut, but was only used there on the uneven bars to take it easy, where she finished fourth in the final ranking. For this reason, she only finished 23rd out of 25 participants in the overall ranking. Later that month she also competed in the USA Gymnastics National Championships in St. Louis , Missouri , where she competed in all four competitions. At the end of the first night she was tied with Raiman in second place behind Biles. On the second night she reached 14,800 points on the jump, 15,150 points on the uneven bars, 15,300 points on the balance beam and 14,800 points on the floor. In the final ranking of the individual all-around event, she ranked third behind Biles and Raisman. She took third place on the uneven bars and on the balance beam and was tied for third place on the floor with MyKayla Skinner . Shortly thereafter, at the beginning of July 2016, she took part in the Olympic Trials in San José , California , and was able to convince above all on the balance beam, where she took first place on the first and second night. In the floor exercise, she was third behind Biles and Raisman the first night. On the first as well as on the second day, she ranked second in the individual all-around competition. She was then officially nominated for the Summer Olympics in Rio along with Biles, Douglas, Raisman and Madison Kocian .

On August 7, 2016, Hernandez contested the qualification in jump, balance beam and on the ground as part of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. With her participation, she is the first American- born Hispanic American gymnast since Tracee Talavera , who took part in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles . In addition, she was the second youngest female athlete in the 554-strong US Olympic field, surpassing table tennis player Kanak Jha by only ten days. It was only on the balance beam that she made it into the final. Even on the ground she would have made it through to fourth place in the qualification without any problems, but only a maximum of two athletes from one nation were allowed to make it into the final. On August 9, she won the gold medal in the team all-around with the US team and was 9.959 points ahead of the second-placed Chinese . Six days later Laurie Hernandez won the silver medal in the final on the balance beam with 15.333 points and 0.133 points behind the Dutchwoman Sanne Wevers . Her compatriot Simone Biles, who was in first place ahead of Hernandez in qualifying, finished third and accordingly won bronze. Since the result was unsatisfactory, an objection was raised against the result, but this was subsequently rejected.

Professional status - no NCAA career

Since she received professional status through sponsorship contracts before her participation in the Olympic Games and had actually already announced in 2014 that she wanted to start a college career, these plans were discarded because she was no longer a professional, i.e. with the receipt of money for the sport Eligible for the NCAA. The plan was that Laurie Hernandez, who had been home-schooled since third grade , would begin a career in the NCAA . The University of Florida was chosen as the preferred university , which among other things already made an obligation in 2014, whereby it would have been used in the gymnastics program of the Florida Gators university sports department .

Web links

Commons : Laurie Hernandez  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Laurie Hernandez on USA Gymnastics (English)
• Laurie Hernandez on the official website of the 2016 Olympic Summer Games
• Who is ... Laurie Hernandez (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} 16-year-old Laurie Hernandez's meteoric rise in gymnastics , accessed on August 22, 2016
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Laurie Hernández Is the Second Puerto Rican Gymnast to Represent Team USA at the Olympics , accessed on August 22, 2016
3. ↑ Young Latina Gymnast Laurie Hernandez Earns Spot on US Olympic Team , accessed on August 22, 2016
4. ↑ Congratulations to Bailie Key and Laurie Hernandez for finishing 1st and 2nd at the International Junior Mexican Cup! ( Memento of the original from 23 August 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed on August 22, 2016 
5. ^ ^{A b} 2015 US Championships Results , accessed on August 22, 2016
6. ↑ 2015 City of Jesolo Trophy Final Results (English), accessed on August 22, 2016
7. ↑ Jesolo: Event Final Results (English), accessed on August 22, 2016
8. ↑ USA Gymnastics announces US Women's Team for 2016 Pacific Rim Championships presented by Hershey's ( Memento from August 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on August 22, 2016
9. ↑ Biles, Hernandez Not Participating In Pac Rims Event Finals , accessed August 22, 2016
10. ↑ Laurie Hernandez on Knee Strain & Brand New Floor Routine - Training Day, Secret Classic 2016 (English), accessed on August 22, 2016
11. ↑ Armor: Laurie Hernandez keeps pace with vets at US gymnastics championships , accessed August 22, 2016
12. ↑ Golden Senior Routines - 2016 Secret US Classic , accessed August 22, 2016
13. ^ Secret US Classic - Seniors , accessed August 22, 2016
14. ↑ Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman Lead Olympic Women's Gymnastics Team , accessed August 2016
15. ↑ Rio Event Finals - Balance Beam , accessed on August 22, 2016
16. ↑ ^{a b c} Hernandez opts to forego collegiate eligibility (English), accessed on August 22, 2016