When the U.S. trials began Friday night, Hezly Rivera was considered the least likely candidate to make the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. After all, it's the toughest team in the world to make, and the 16-year-old from Oradell has only just begun her career at the highest level.

Then the injuries started piling up. And when given an unexpected opportunity, Rivera wowed the Minneapolis crowd – and, more importantly, the selection committee – with a convincing performance this weekend in two contests the Americans will need most.

The boy from Bergen County with the catchy first name is headed to Paris, and as casual fans tune in to see if Simone Biles can build on her legacy as the greatest player of all time, they may also catch a glimpse of the sport's promising future.

Rivera, who turned 16 on June 4, started gymnastics when coaches discovered her at a friend's birthday party when she was 5. Her family moved to Texas two years ago so she could train at one of the country's top gymnastics centers, WOGA Plano, with a weekend like this in mind.

“For me, this is crazy. It happened so fast. It seems like yesterday when I just saw it, and now the opportunity to make the team is just incredible,” Rivera recently told a television station in Dallas.

Her four teammates competed for Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics, and it seemed as though the fifth gymnast on the team would also have plenty of experience until an unimaginable series of injuries changed everything.

Skye Blakely, a member of the last two U.S. teams to win gold at the World Championships, tore her Achilles tendon during training. Kayla DiCello, another strong contender for the team, also injured her Achilles tendon during the vault and left the arena in a wheelchair. And in the final event, Shilese Jones – practically guaranteed to make the team after winning a medal at each of the last two World Championships – injured her knee and was only able to compete in one event in the qualifying competitions.

“Simone Biles and…whoever is left for Paris?” read a headline in USA Today.

Unlike the U.S. Olympic trials in other sports, which are all-or-nothing, the U.S. team has only one automatic qualifier – the winner – and that was Biles to begin with. But given the turmoil with injuries, most observers believed a strong performance Sunday night could help a gymnast clinch the fifth and final spot on the team.

Rivera was nearly perfect. She began the evening with a 14.3 on the uneven bars and then scored a 14.275 on the balance beam – one of the best performances of the competition. Those were the two apparatus that Team USA needed most from the fifth gymnast. Rivera finished fifth in the all-around with an impressive performance of 111.15, two tenths of a point behind Jade Carey.

Rivera's breakthrough wasn't expected until 2028, but recent performances should give Team USA cause for optimism. Competing in the senior women's division at the 2024 Winter Cup, she finished third in the all-around – behind DiCello and Blakely – and, perhaps just as importantly, took gold on the balance beam.

When she perfected her uneven bars performance at the U.S. Championships earlier this month, a video of her father, Henry, cheering in the crowd went viral. For NBC, the Olympics are a 16-day television show, and the fact that the fresh-faced Rivera is competing alongside the legend Biles will be an intriguing subplot airing in prime time.

She won't be the first New Jersey teenager to compete on the world stage. Old Bridge native Laurie Hernandez, who will be part of NBC's coverage from Paris, won an individual silver medal and a team gold medal at the 2016 Rio Games when she was 16.

Now Hezly Rivera will try to follow in her footsteps.

“We’re going to Paris, baby!” her father Henry Rivera said in the crowd.

Yes she is.

OTHER OLYMPIC GAMES IN NJ:

How a real Jersey Jedi plans to win a gold medal

McLaughlin-Levrone sets another world record on the way to Paris

Two record-breaking swimmers from New Jersey are on their way to Paris

US Trials are cruel – just ask these Jersey athletes

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You can reach Steve Politi at [email protected].