Suni Lee had to go through a lot to get to the Paris Olympics. In 2023, she was diagnosed with two kidney diseases, one of which was incurable, clouding her gymnastics career in doubt. However, she didn’t give up and within a year, she made it to the US team traveling to Paris.

At the Olympics, she had quite a memorable outing too. She built on her three medals won at the Tokyo Olympics, by adding a further three medals in Paris. But, despite all these accolades, there was one bad moment during her campaign that stuck with her. It occurred during the final day of the competition.

Suni Lee talks about her most embarrassing moment at the Olympics

Winning three medals at the competition, Suni Lee was in high spirits entering the final day of the competition. It was the balance beam and she was aiming to add one last medal to her tally. Talking to Glamour, she said, “This was the main one, because I always make it into the beam final, and something always goes wrong.”

Unfortunately for her, things would go wrong for her this time too. While performing her routine, Suni fell from the bar, leading her to finish in sixth place. But her biggest fear then was that she was going to be a meme on Twitter. It kept on bugging her. This is because memes spread on social media like wildfire these days. So what did she decide to do? “And then I went on TikTok, and I made one myself. I can make fun of myself because, at the end of the day, it’s just a competition,” said Suni.

She uploaded the video of her falling from the beam with the background music of Star Spangled Banner, making fun of herself. This was very positively received by the audience, who motivated her in the comments. It also helped calm down the storm of trolling, which Suni believed was coming for her after the fall.

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While it wasn’t the most ideal situation, the gymnast still had a campaign to be proud of and a journey to remember. “That wasn’t how I wanted to end my Olympics in Paris, and I was a little disappointed, but at the end of the day, I was super proud of myself because I made it to the Olympics,” Suni said. This is true, as at one point it looked difficult for her to even make it to Paris.

Suni Lee’s struggle to reach the Paris Olympics

In an interview with Glamour, Suni Lee described just how bleak her chances to compete in Paris looked like. Her kidney disease forced her to announce retirement from her collegiate career. Many were devastated upon hearing that, as they had assumed they would never see Suni on the mat again. Somewhere down the line, she felt self-doubt too.

She said, “The hardest thing was just waking up and going to the gym, forcing myself, because a part of me was just so embarrassed and ashamed to show my face.” It wasn’t just her she was concerned about. Suni Lee felt that many little girls in her gym looked up to her as a sort of inspiration. She thought that she was letting them down. “There are so many little girls in the gym that look up to me, and I just felt I was kind of letting them down, because I wasn’t able to do a lot of things,” the gymnast said.

If that’s the case, then those girls are more likely inspired than ever after watching Suni overcome such a huge obstacle and come back to the Olympics. Not only that, but she helped the US team win the gold medal, too. Suni Lee has thus secured her legacy as an athlete.