Simone Biles will always have her former Olympic teammate Laurie Hernandez in her corner

Laurie Hernandez Says Simone Biles Is a Lock to Make Paris Olympic Team: ‘You Can Count on Her’ (Exclusive)The Paris 2024 hopeful, who just won her ninth U.S. Championship on June 2, will next tackle the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Team Trials from June 27-30, and Hernandez is rooting for her the whole way.

“Simone is a big name that will always keep popping up,” Hernandez says of Biles, whom she competed alongside at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. “She’s just a surefire for Team USA [in Paris], to know that she’s going to go out there and be consistent. Her difficulty is so high, and she really is one of the best. You can count on her. You know you’re going to watch greatness when her name pops up.”If Biles makes the Olympic team, she’ll be the first American woman to make three Olympic gymnastics teams since Dominique Dawes. At the time of the Games, she’ll also be 27 years old, which in the gymnastics world, is “old,” Hernandez, 23, says with a bit of a smile.

“We’re so funny,” Hernandez, who recently partnered with Olay Cleansing Melts ahead of the Paris Games, adds, while acknowledging that many gymnasts don’t compete for as long as Biles has. “But this is a really exciting year.”

Biles herself addressed the discussion about her “old” age after her win on June 2, telling reporters, “I use the phrase ‘aging like fine wine.’ It’s just getting better and better. We’ll see. Hopefully we get to ride this out for the rest of the year.”

And seemingly, she is. She snatched gold medals in every apparatus at the competition: floor, vault, beam and uneven bars. She finished with a two-day total score of 119.750.