Before the second day of the women’s competition at U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials officially began, 80 percent of the five-person team was virtually locked in. 

Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey had separated themselves from a field depleted by injuries on night one to claim the top four spots in the all-around standings, and the quartet of Tokyo Olympians fit together to form a well-rounded team with individual medal potential across multiple events. 

But the Paris Olympics, unlike the Tokyo Games, will feature five-person teams in the artistic gymnastics events. Three contenders who were firmly in the mix to make the team — Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely and Kayla DiCello — withdrew from the trials because of injuries that occurred while in Minneapolis for the meet. Jones, a prohibitive favorite to make the team, didn’t compete Sunday after injuring her knee warming up a vault Friday. Blakely ruptured her Achilles during podium training Wednesday before competition began, and DiCello sustained the same injury on her first vault of the meet Friday. 

After two days of intense, unpredictable competition, Hezly Rivera earned her spot on the squad that boasts four seasoned veterans. 

The Olympic team final takes a “three up, three count” format in which three athletes compete on each apparatus and all three scores count. The U.S. could fill the three spots on each event with a trio out of Biles, Lee, Chiles and Carey, but that combination has slight weak spots on uneven bars and balance beam that could be improved with the addition of a gymnast who can be put into the lineup to contribute a few more tenths. 

Enter Rivera.

The 2023 junior all-around national champion made her senior elite debut earlier this year and just turned 16 at the beginning of June. She hasn’t had much experience competing internationally, but she was a member of the team that took silver at junior world championships last year. Rivera, a native of Oradell, N.J., used to train under Maggie Haney, who was 2016 Olympian Laurie Hernandez’s coach, but Haney is currently suspended for five years by USA Gymnastics for verbal and emotional abuse of athletes. Rivera and her family moved to Texas where she now trains at WOGA under Valeri Liukin, who coached his daughter Nastia to the Olympic all-around title in 2008. 

Her routines on uneven bars and balance beam are the key elements to how she fits in the team-building puzzle. Her 6.1 difficulty score on bars sets her up to score over a 14.000 when she hits, and she can also contribute a score in the upper 13-low 14.00 range on beam with a 6.0 difficulty score. 

On Sunday, she scored a 14.300 on bars and a 14.275 on beam, which placed her in a tie for first on that event. 

Imagine being a junior in high school and competing at the U.S. Olympic Trials?!

That dream is a reality for 16-year-old Hezly Rivera. #USAGTrials24 pic.twitter.com/n8A9wmsMgQ

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— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 1, 2024

Her two lower-scoring events, vault and floor exercise, are not an issue because Biles, Chiles and Carey excel on those apparatuses. In Paris, she will likely be counted on to do beam in the team final and serve as a backup option for the bars lineup if Lee, who has been dealing with a kidney-related health condition, cannot perform on competition day. 

When the stakes were high and even some of the veterans felt the nerves, Rivera proved she could handle the pressure. Now she’s headed to Paris.

Required reading

(Photo: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)

The writing was on the wall for England and their head coach, Gareth Southgate.

A tournament marked by underwhelming performances was set to end in Gelsenkirchen, with a limp showing against the 45th best team in the world.

But then, Jude Bellingham stirred. In the space of three minutes and 17 seconds, England — and Southgate — were saved.

Was this the moment that changed everything?

England will certainly hope so. They say greatness is forged from adversity, but England were not in difficult circumstances when Bellingham took flight deep into stoppage time.

They were desperate.

Trailing 1-0 courtesy of Ivan Schranz’s first-half strike for Slovakia, England were essentially out of time. Six minutes of stoppage time had been added to the end of the match and four and a half of those had already elapsed.

The ball had bounced out for a throw-in on the England right flank. Desperate times called for desperate measures. For much of this tournament, England have laboured on the ball, lacking a clear playing identity. But all of that talk was irrelevant now. They just needed to find something, somehow, from somewhere.

So they resort to a good, old-fashioned long throw. One footballer chucking the ball with all his strength into the box with his hands, hoping for the best.

Kyle Walker was England’s honorary Rory Delap — a former Ireland international who made his name with a bullet throw for Stoke City in the 2000s — although he lacked Delap’s legendary distance.

His throw into the box would only just reach the six-yard box. England had seven players waiting in the penalty area, hoping it would land kindly.

It is defender Marc Guehi who makes the all-important first contact. He is being marked tightly, but his header turns a sub-par long throw into a good one. The flick-on keeps the attack alive.

Waiting around the six-yard box is first Ivan Toney, who is shielding another Slovakian marker, Norbert Gyomber. In doing so, he leaves space.

Bellingham then drifts away from his marker, Denis Vavro, as if guided by the hands of fate.

He takes that open space and the ball arrives slightly behind him. No matter. There is no hesitation from Bellingham, no second-guessing. No doubt.

This is a player who rises to the occasion and has done so time and time again.

This season alone, Bellingham has been a difference maker in stoppage time six times, either securing a win or equalising late for England (now twice) or Real Madrid (four times). This includes a stoppage-time winner against Barcelona in El Clasico, as well as a stoppage-time winner against Union Berlin in the Champions League — a goal that saw him become the youngest player to score a 90th-minute winning goal for Real Madrid in that competition and the youngest Englishman of any side to do so.

Playing for England invites a torrent of pressure that can deprive even the best in the game of their senses, but not Bellingham. His instinct was to attempt one of the most difficult techniques in the game at the most crucial junction of England’s tournament.

Bellingham needed no invitation to join the pantheon of England greats — Hurst, Platt, Beckham, Owen — by scoring in iconic fashion at a major tournament.

He lifts into the air, twists his body and throws his right leg at the ball.

He connects perfectly and redirects the ball into the ground and beyond Martin Dubravka — who otherwise had enjoyed a quiet evening.

This was England’s first shot on target in the entire game.

But England were alive.

“In desperate times we need desperate measures and great players try outrageous things,” said The Athletic columnist and former England international Alan Shearer. “Most times they fail, but for great players they work sometimes. To try that in such a tense moment and not be worried about the outcome says how great he is. It may just be the spark (England need).”

Bellingham runs away and can be seen shouting “who else” to the fans and to the cameras.

After being embraced by his grateful team-mates, he performs his iconic celebration, with his arms outstretched, alongside the captain Harry Kane.

“One of the best (goals) in our country’s history I reckon,” declared Kane to FOX. “What a player. He works so hard for the team. There’s been a lot of talk about him over the past couple of days, but he stepped up in the big moment. That’s what we need and he did that today.”

Kane, though, would have more to say in this game. The job was not yet done.

The match would trundle on until the 97th minute and then, the clocks reset. We travel back in time to the 90th minute for the start of extra time. Thirty more minutes of action to see whether the two teams could be separated before the looming threat of penalties — England’s kryptonite.

But England retain the momentum following Bellingham’s moment of brilliance. And again, it is a set play that helps them on their way.

Straight away, substitute Ivan Toney wins a free kick on the right flank and Cole Palmer takes it. The clock has reached 90 minutes and 45 seconds.

But Dubravka is commanding and punches the ball clear.

It falls to Eberechi Eze on the edge of the box, who tries to volley for goal but gets it wrong, so wrong that it inadvertently keeps the attack alive. His shot bounces into the ground and towards Ivan Toney, who had momentarily slipped but regained his balance. The Brentford striker had a hand in the first goal, but now he will take centre stage.

Toney heads the ball first time across goal, generating enough power to lift the ball over five players and leave goalkeeper Dubravka backpedalling. It is an inch-perfect header.

It is also a present for captain Kane. He heads the ball into the net as the clock hits 90 minutes and 51 seconds.

From despair at a dismal performance to relief and elation. England kept their Euro 2024 hopes alive with a defining spell lasting three minutes and 17 seconds. An equaliser in the 95th minute and a winner in the 91st. It might look odd on scoreboards, but no England fan will care.

Looming post-mortems were put on ice. Southgate’s side laboured throughout their encounter with Slovakia and they will know that they simply have to improve if they are to go further in this tournament. The talent within their squad demands performances of better quality and relying on moments of inspiration will surely not be enough to beat tougher opposition.

But for the faults of this encounter, it will still be a game that evokes fond memories. This was also the match where Bellingham etched his name into the collective memory. In doing so, he gave his coach a stay of execution. But who knows, this may also be the match that sees England turn a corner.

“I had belief right the way through that we would get that goal,” said Southgate. “I didn’t think it would come that late, but I wasn’t ready to go home yet and the players clearly felt the same.”

GO DEEPER

What England can expect from Switzerland – their four tactical traits analysed

(Top photo: Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)

Four of the five Canadian world junior players charged with sexual assault stemming from a June 2018 incident in London, Ont., have been cut loose by their NHL teams after not being tendered a qualifying offer before Sunday’s deadline.

Carter Hart of the Philadelphia Flyers, Dillon Dubé of the Calgary Flames, and Michael McLeod and Cal Foote of the New Jersey Devils are all now unrestricted free agents. They had each been on paid leave from their teams since late January, when they were ordered to surrender to London Police Service to face sexual assault charges.

A trial date has yet to be set. It was up to each team to decide if they wanted to issue a qualifying offer by Sunday’s 5 p.m. ET deadline to retain the NHL rights of those players, and the Flyers, Flames and Devils all decided against it.

Had they done so, and the offers been accepted (which they almost certainly would have been), the players would have continued to be paid while remaining on leave as the legal process played out through what could end up being all of next season.

There are currently no restrictions around their ability to sign with another team right away, deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed to The Athletic on Sunday night. But it will likely be difficult for any of them to do so, given all of the uncertainty around their situations.

The NHL and NHL Players’ Association had discussions in recent weeks about potentially freezing the status of the players until a trial was held, according to league sources familiar with those talks, but couldn’t reach an agreement on how to make that work.

It’s possible that Hart, Dubé, McLeod and Foote explore opportunities to continue their careers in Europe — as Alex Formenton, the fifth player charged alongside them, did the last two seasons in Switzerland with HC Ambrì-Piotta.

Formenton’s NHL rights will remain with the Ottawa Senators through July 1, 2027, because he received a qualifying offer that he didn’t accept following the 2021-22 NHL season and was then moved to their reserve list.

The five players are facing charges for a June 2018 incident inside a room at the Delta London Armouries Hotel following a Hockey Canada Gala at which the world junior team was celebrated for its gold-medal win.

Two counts of sexual assault were brought against McLeod, and one each for Dubé, Foote, Formenton and Hart.

Required reading

(Photo: Andy Devlin / Getty Images)