Fans of the Olympics find a new star. And Laurie Hernandez is not even competing this time
PARIS (AP) — Laurie Hernandez pauses briefly and taps her head.
“There’s a lot going on in here,” the two-time Olympic gymnastics medalist turned TV analyst said with a laugh. “There’s a lot of chatter.”
Yes, there is.
And whatever gets through the filter — which, to be clear, is most of it — has helped make the 24- year- old’s foray into commentating a hit with both TV viewers and those like Hernandez who are perennially online.
Eight years ago in Rio de Janeiro, she was the youngest member of the Simone Biles -led “Final Five” team that stormed to the gold medal. Hernandez added a silver on beam later in those Games, where her boundless energy helped make her a breakout star.
Not much has changed in Paris other than Hernandez’s point of view.
There are nerves to be sure when she slips her headset on alongside broadcast partner Rich Lerner, just very di±erent ones than the kind she experienced as an athlete.
Yet when she starts to talk, the a±ection she still feels for her sport well into her retirement is obvious. So is the wonder that creeps into her commentary when the camera happens to catch someone famous in the stands, as it did during the women’s all-around finals when actor/comedian Seth Rogen popped up on the monitor in front of Hernandez’s spot in the media tribune inside Bercy Arena.
“Of all the people you could cut to? Like, that’s so cool,” Hernandez said. “But, like, I just would not expect, like, Seth Rogen to go to gymnastics.”
Call that the “Biles effect.” What’s happening during the competition on screens — TVs, phone or otherwise — back in the U.S. might best be described as the “Hernandez e±ect.”
She mixes empathy, education and laughter with equal measure. She spent a decade inside a sport that at times can take far more than it gives. Those memories are never too far away, and they have help inform her approach.
“I don’t know many sports, you know, who are like, ‘ Oh, I fear for my life every time I turn,’” Hernandez said.
And because of that, she’s careful to note mistakes but not harp on them. It’s gymnastics. Perfection is unattainable. So why place that level of expectation on athletes doing the hardest skills ever done?
Wobbles and falls are as much a part of the sport as leotards and chalk. They are inevitable. She prefers to explain how they happened so viewers who might only stumble across it once every four years understand.