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 different ones than the kind she experienced as an athlete.
Yet when she starts to talk, the affection 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.”
At the Paris Olympics
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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 effect.”
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.
The same goes for when routines are done exquisitely. Sometimes what the viewer sees and the judges see are different things and when the score flashes there's a “wait, what?” element involved.
Welcome to the world of what she's calling “ghost deductions.”
“To the naked eye, this looks like the most marvelous thing, and it is," she said. “But there are deductions that you cannot see at home that I can see or the judges can see, and it’s up to you to just listen to it or not.”
The gymnasts aren't the only ones being judged. Hernandez would love to tell you she buries her phone in her pocket and ignores whatever capital T “Thoughts” social media might have on her performance. She can't. She's Gen Z. At this point in her life, it's practically in her DNA. She's not afraid to clap back at critics if only to respectfully ask they simply not tag her in their posts so she can scroll in peace.
There will be times when something happens in front of her and some reference — be it from TikTok or elsewhere — will pop into her head and it transforms from thought to her microphone in a flash.
Is it “unprofessional” as she put it? Not really. It's her way of trying to stay as authentic as possible. When she gets nervous — and she does — she imagines she's sitting on a couch at a party.
“Everyone's got a glass of whatever you want and we all just happen to be like, besties hanging out,” Hernandez said. “And I just happen to know a lot about the thing that’s on TV.”
