Suni Lee wins bronze in the uneven bars final at the Paris Olympics

Team USA gymnast Suni Lee won bronze in the uneven bars final at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris on Sunday, closing out the event with a strong finish that prompted roaring cheers from an audience that included fellow star athlete Simone Biles as she landed her dismount.

Lee was the only American who participated in the final as only eight gymnasts were allowed to compete. Biles placed ninth in the qualification round.

The uneven bars are Lee’s signature skill. The 21-year-old’s performance in Sunday’s event scored an impressive 14.800 from the judging panel, earning third place behind 17-year-old Kaylia Nemour of Algeria, who ended qualifiers with top marks and fulfilled expectations as the favorite to win in the final, and 17-year-old Qiu Qiyuan of China, who was world champion on uneven bars in 2023.

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Nemour took home the gold after her routine scored a remarkable 15.700, while Qiu took home silver with 15.000.

The triumph from Nemour was historic, marking the first Olympic medal in gymnastics for any African nation since the Games began. The teenager was born in France but chose to compete for Algeria, where her father was born, after a dispute with the French Gymnastics Federation that would have prevented her from participating in the Olympics this year.

Lee took home the bronze medal in bars on Sunday for the second time in her Olympic career. The returning member of Team USA won bronze in the same event at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, where she was the all-around champion.

Her latest win brought Lee her sixth Olympic medal overall and third medal so far in the Paris Games after she earned another bronze in Thursday’s individual all-around final, where Biles took home the gold. Earlier in the week, both Lee and Biles helped the United States dominate the team all-around final, too, ultimately winning gold in that event.

The women’s gymnastics final on bars was packed with international talent, and Lee edged out Belgium’s Nina Derwael, the reigning Olympic champion in this event, by just a small fraction of a point to earn third place. Also competing in the final was Italy’s Alice D’Amato, the reigning European champion, Britain’s Rebecca Downie, who twice won the European championship in addition to the world championship title in 2019, and Germany’s Helen Kevric, who won gold on bars at the junior world championships last year.

Looking ahead to the rest of the week, Biles will return to the Bercy Arena on Monday to compete in the floor exercise and balance beam finals. Along with Team USA’s all-around victory and Biles’ individual gold in the all-around last week, her highly-anticipated Olympic comeback most recently included a gold medal in the vault final on Saturday.