It was 12:30 a.m. in Paris earlier than the ladies’s gymnastics crew finals on the 2024 Olympic Games, and Sunisa “Suni” Lee was on the tail finish of a psychological breakdown.
“It’s like a ritual,” the 21-year-old Glamour Woman of the Year says over Zoom from her condo in Minnesota. If Lee doesn’t have a superb cry the night time earlier than a contest, she says, folks near her know one thing is absolutely incorrect. Jordan Chiles will need to have forgotten that a part of her Olympic Village roommate’s routine. “She was like, ‘I’m gonna go get Simone.’”
Yes, Simone Biles. Not many individuals would get up essentially the most embellished gymnast in historical past (herself a previous Woman of the Year) to ship a pep discuss the night time earlier than her personal extremely publicized Olympic return. And but—though Lee implored Chiles to let the GOAT sleep—the gymnast knocked on Biles’s door anyway: “Simone, Suni’s panicking.”
The strain to ship one other gold medal after the 2020 Tokyo Games (which have been held in 2021 as a result of COVID 19 pandemic) had grow to be so intense that Lee wanted to be reminded she had secured the all-around title simply three years in the past—the primary Asian American athlete to take action. Biles’s midnight recommendation? “You have to stroll round such as you’re the reigning Olympic champion, and it’s good to personal it. You have to remind your self that you simply’re ok, and you’re on this crew for a cause.”
Hours later Suni Lee helped lead Team USA to gold in that crew remaining, incomes the group’s prime rating on the uneven bars and matching the quantity one of many night time on the steadiness beam. In the times that adopted, she’d take residence two extra particular person bronze medals: one for the uneven bars and one other for all-around. “Being on the Olympics actually made me fall again in love with the game,” she says.
Comeback tales don’t normally begin with taking residence gold on the Olympics, however Lee’s triumphs in Tokyo three years in the past got here after Biles unexpectedly withdrew from the competitors. Despite profitable gold within the all-around and main Team USA to silver, Lee didn’t suppose she deserved her wins—a mindset additional fueled by social media. Comments within the vein of “If Simone hadn’t pulled out, she’d have received” performed on a loop in Lee’s head.
This nervousness wasn’t simply fed by nameless avatars on social media. Lee’s former Tokyo teammate MyKayla Skinner not too long ago confronted backlash for disparaging feedback in regards to the 2024 Olympic roster forward of the Games. “Besides Simone, I really feel just like the expertise and the depth simply isn’t like what it was,” Skinner mentioned in a since-deleted YouTube video, per the New York Post. “Obviously, a number of ladies don’t work as exhausting. The ladies simply don’t have the work ethic.”
The Golden Girls—as Lee, Biles, and their teammates referred to as themselves—let their gold medal (and a few pointed Instagram comments) converse for them, however Lee was understandably damage by Skinner’s phrases. “We have a number of love for her, but it surely’s irritating to see her put us down as a result of she is aware of, principally, about each single factor that we’ve all been by means of,” Lee says. “It was extra annoying due to all of the issues that I’ve been by means of.” (For her half, Skinner addressed the backlash and clarified and apologized for her comments.)
In the yr main as much as Paris, Lee had been coping with rather more than imposter syndrome and snarky feedback: Just earlier than she turned 20 in early 2023, her life modified in a single day. “I awoke and my face was so swollen, my physique—I seemed within the mirror and knew one thing was incorrect,” Lee says. During apply her fingers barely match into her grips, and she or he couldn’t carry her personal physique. “It actually felt like I had an eight-pound vest on, and I used to be making an attempt to chuck myself over the bar.”
