While Simone Biles understandably takes up a lot of air in the conversation of USA Gymnastics, there is another athlete on the team who makes it hard to overshadow her: Auburn gymnast Sunisa “Suni” Lee.
Lee emerged as a star in the sport during the 2020 Tokyo Games (which took place in 2021), from which Biles was forced to withdraw with a case of the twisties. Lee, the first ever Hmong-American to compete for the United States in the Olympics, is already among the most decorated Americans in USA gymnastics history at age 21. She has six World Championships and Olympic medals (three in each), and she was the 2022 NCAA balance beam champion.
If Lee medals in the 2024 Paris Olympics, she would move into a tie with Shawn Johnson and Chellsie Memmel for eighth in medal count in major events among US. gymnasts. Lee’s teammate, Shilese Jones, has an opportunity to do the same, as she also enters with six medals between gymnastics’ major events.
How did Lee end up in such a vaunted position on Team USA? Her performance at the 2020 Games in Tokyo thrust her into the public eye, and from there Lee has done nothing to disabuse viewers of the notion she is elite.
Suni Lee 2020 Tokyo Olympics medal count
Lee took three medals in the 2020 Tokyo Games, including a gold medal in the individual all-around category.
Lee was also recognized as part of a USA squad that took silver among teams, and won bronze on the uneven bars. The one event Lee did not medal in that she participated in was the balance beam, for which she came in fifth.
