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Team USA Gymnastics is back, baby.
Sunisa Lee, who goes by Suni, stunned in her Olympic debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games. She stole the show with a performance that earned her the all-around gold medal. Not only was she the first Asian American woman to win the all-around gold, but she also reinvigorated a team shaken by Simone Biles' decision to withdraw from the competition to prioritize her mental health.
The 5-foot, 21-year-old gymnast from St. Paul, Minnesota, is known for her dominance on the uneven bars and the balance beam. Lee has earned three Olympic medals, including a bronze on the uneven bars and a silver in the women's team event. She later became the NCAA beam and SEC uneven bars champion while competing collegiately at Auburn University.
Now, she is going for more Olympic glory in Paris.
Lee was a "lively child" who liked to tumble, prompting her parents to buy her a wooden balance beam to practice on, according to her Olympics biography. In her USA Gymnastics biography, she stated that she was interested in the sport because it was "fun" and she "liked to do flips." She began formal training at six years old at the Midwest Gymnastics Center, where Puner Koy coached her.
Lee's stardom was evident early on. In her second competition of her entire career, she was an all-around champion at a state gymnastics meet. By age 11, she qualified as an elite athlete in the USA Gymnastics Women's Development Program, meaning she could compete for the United States in international competitions. By 14, she was on the US Junior National Team. Two years later, as a member of the US Senior National Team, she won first place on floor, uneven bars, and all-around at the 2019 City of Jesolo Trophy in Italy.
Lee is a member of Minnesota's Hmong community, many members of whom settled in the American Midwest after facing oppression in East and Southeast Asia. Many of them became refugees during the Vietnam War and fought alongside the United States.
"I can't find the words to express how happy we are, how important that was to me and my family and to the whole Hmong community throughout the world," John Lee, Suni's father and a Navy veteran, told the Associated Press in 2021.
The Hmong culture typically endorses academics over sports, but Lee's family has a long history of athleticism.
"All three of my girls can do backflips, none of the boys can," said John Lee, who grew up playing sports.
With her debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games — which took place in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic — Lee became the second Hmong to compete in the Olympics for any team, the Associated Press reported.
Lee spent years admiring Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all time, before she competed alongside her on Team USA in Tokyo.
"When I was at the Olympics, my coach and I noticed that when I worked alongside her, I was constantly getting better," Lee said. "You see how she does things, and it's like, 'I wanna be like her,' so it really pushed me to be the best version of myself."
Team USA fans were stunned when Biles pulled out of the team competition in the 2020 Olympics, but it cleared the way for Lee to steal the show when she became the individual all-around champion of the games.
She secured a bronze medal on the uneven bars, though she said she was disappointed in her performance. She blamed part of it on her social media use, telling People she "got distracted and lost focus a little bit" after winning gold.
"Bars is my thing," she said at the time. "To mess it up like this, I was just kind of sad about it."
After competing for the Auburn Tigers for two seasons, Lee left college to focus on her return to the Olympics to "prove" to herself that she could do it. She's heading to the Olympics with much of the same 2020 team, including Biles, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey, along with newcomer Hezly Rivera.
Lee still trains at Minnesota's Midwest Gymnastics with coach Jess Graba, according to her USA Gymnastics bio.
Lee's bio on Team USA says she is in a relationship with Jaylin Smith, a football player at the University of Southern California. She posted an Instagram photo of the two that has since been deleted. At the time, in 2022, she spoke publicly about the harassment she received for being in a biracial relationship.
In early 2023, Lee found out she had kidney issues after she noticed swelling in her ankles, legs, hands, and face. She was on "a lot of medications" and had "so many doctor's appointments" that interrupted her training, she told Olympics.com at the time.
"I could wake up very swollen some days and not be able to put my fingers inside my grips. It's really difficult to kind of work through, but on the days that I can do stuff and I am feeling good, I try and take advantage of that and just get everything done," she said.
Eventually, her health concerns caused her to opt out of the US Women's World Championships Selection Event in September. Lee said it "was definitely a hard decision, but I'm 100% sure I made the right call in order to be my best for the upcoming year" of preparations for Paris.
But facing obstacles hasn't stopped fans or sponsors from betting on Lee. While Lee's exact net worth is unclear, it includes lucrative partnerships with major brands like Target, Meta, Invisalign, Skims, Gatorade, and more. Her Instagram account currently features ads with Skims, Toyota, L'Oréal, KISS Salon, and Batiste, among others.
