The Suni also rises: Simone Biles isn’t the best redemption story of the Olympics

aAt her lowest point, Suni Lee didn’t even think about returning to the Olympics. Just getting out of bed in the morning was hard enough. After a year and a half of uncertainty and depression, while battling two career-threatening kidney ailments that had caused her to gain 45 pounds on her 5-foot-10 frame and kept her out of the gym for months, the Tokyo Olympic all-around champion was ready to call it quits.

For all the attention Simone Biles’ extraordinary comeback has received over the past week, Lee’s return to the sport’s biggest stage was even more unlikely. On Thursday night, the 21-year-old from Minnesota won bronze behind Biles’ gold and Rebeca Andrade’s silver in one of the greatest gymnastics competitions ever staged, becoming the first Olympic all-around champion to win a medal at the next Summer Games since Nadia Comaneci in 1980.

It didn’t come easy. Lee was in fifth place overall after two rotations after a disappointing start on the vault, but she couldn’t make up ground on a beam routine where she had mentally slipped and needed something special to get into the medal mix on a day when the leaders were putting their best foot forward. Lee was known for her fluid, elegant routines on the uneven bars, but her podium chances would depend on the floor exercise. That’s when Lee’s longtime coach Jess Graba kept it simple: “Win ​​floor, and you win [a bronze],” he said.

From the moment Lee completed her first tumbling pass, a goosebump-inducing full-twisting double layout that she executed perfectly, the ear-to-ear smile on her face said everything you needed to know. When her routine was complete and her score of 13.666 appeared on the screen, enough to overtake Italy’s Alice D’Amato and Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour to reach the podium by less than two-tenths of a point, Lee covered her mouth in amazement before hugging the coach who never stopped believing.

“I feel like everything I’ve been doing has paid off,” said Lee, who won a gold medal with Biles in the team event on Tuesday. “I mean, literally six months ago, I didn’t even think I’d be here today competing. That was an accomplishment in itself. I honestly didn’t think I’d be standing on the podium. Just to be standing here is absolutely amazing. And I don’t know if you guys could tell, but I definitely got a little emotional after my floor exercise. Just seeing the score was just insane.”

Two days after Biles shocked the world in Tokyo by withdrawing from the team finals after suffering from “the twisties,” Lee won Olympic all-around gold and went from unsung hero of the U.S. team to Hmong-American fairytale and instant celebrity, appearing on late-night talk shows, attending the Met Gala and appearing on Dancing with the Stars. The door to opportunity rarely requires a forced lock, just the right combination.

But the overnight fame wasn’t all it seemed. After enrolling at Auburn University, where she became the first Olympic women’s all-around champion in collegiate gymnastics and drew huge crowds to her competitions, Lee struggled with the pitfalls of fame. Online trolls only amplified her imposter syndrome to win the sport’s most cherished title in Biles’ absence. College was tough, and rumors circulated that some classmates behave badly. Her struggles only worsened in November 2022, not long after Lee announced she would be leaving Auburn after the spring to train for the Paris Olympics. She began experiencing swelling around her ankles, leading doctors to conclude that her kidneys were not functioning properly. For her own safety, she was told, she might have to quit gymnastics altogether. After she stopped training and moved home to Minnesota, the various treatments for the two incurable kidney diseases led to weight gain and exhaustion.

Lee was out of the gym for five months, with her body sometimes holding more than 40 pounds of water. She couldn’t fit into her clothes and at times her eyes swelled shut. After returning to training for two competitions in 2023, where she made the podium but performed far below her game, she turned down an invitation to a world championships selection camp. That, she said, was her lowest point. Less than a year before the Paris Olympics, Lee didn’t set foot in the gym for four months. “I wasn’t doing myself any good,” she said. “I was just rotting in my bed and hoping it would all go away.”

Then came January, when her doctors told her she had reached a turning point in her recovery and was no longer needing IVs as often. That allowed her to return to full-time training, with the Olympics just seven months away. At the U.S. Trials last month, after working tirelessly to get her skills, stamina and mental acuity back to Tokyo levels, she finished second in the all-around and secured a spot on the Olympic team. That all of this happened in just six months is hard to believe.

The events reached a climax on Thursday night, the first-ever Olympic all-around final featuring two former champions in the field. After the final results were announced, Lee jumped onto the podium next to Biles and the two celebrated by holding an American flag aloft.

Lee is now a five-time Olympic medalist with a pair of event finals in the coming days to supplement her ample career earnings, starting with the balance beam on Sunday and the uneven bars on Monday. The self-doubt. The health fears. The public body shaming, including by a former teammate. It was all left behind on a night when a bronze medal felt more like a gold than ever before.

“Right now I’m just proud to be where I am and do the things that I’m doing, because no one really believed in me,” Lee said. “It’s about not giving up.”