2024-07-29 04:10:03
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.
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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.
Lee joined Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade and the Russian Olympic Committee’s Angelina Melnikova as the only women’s gymnasts to medal in multiple individual events at Tokyo 2020. Andrade and Lee were the only ones to win individual gold while earning that achievement.
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Suni Lee 2020 Olympics scores
Lee competed in four events at the 2020 Olympics: the team, all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam.
Balance beam scores
Lee scored a 6.4 and 7.466 (13.866) for her balance beam routines, putting her in fifth place. Her teammate Biles took bronze on the beam, while China took gold and silver via Guan Chenchen and Tang Xijing, respectively.
Uneven bars scores
In the uneven bars, Lee came in third to earn bronze with scores of 6.2 and 8.3 (14.500). She finished behind Belgium’s Nina Derwael (15.200) and the Russian Olympic Committee’s Anastasia Ilyankova (14.833).
Individual all-around scores
The all-around is where Lee truly shined, edging out Brazil’s Andrade with a score of 57.433. Andrade finished with a score of 57.298 for silver.
Within the all-around, Lee scored 14.600 on the vault, 15.300 on the uneven bars, 13.833 on the balance beam, and 13.700 on the floor exercise.
Team all-around scores
Finally, there was the team all-around, in which the United States finished second behind the Russian Olympic Committee.
Lee scored 15.400 on the uneven bars (tied with Derwael for best among all competitors), 14.133 on the balance beam (second-best among all competitors behind the ROC’s Viktoria Listunova), and 13.666 on floor exercises.
Lee’s depth and breadth of talent helped her to set herself apart from the field in 2021. Now, three years later, she is hoping to do the same as a more established part of Team USA.
