SO SAD: Suni Lee from USA gymnastics team withdrawn from the 2024 Olympic competition due to… Details
The gymnast was diagnosed with incurable kidney disease in 2023.
Tokyo Olympics all-around champion Suni Lee is officially headed to Paris for the 2024 Games, along with four other outstanding American gymnasts. But despite her success in 2021, returning for her second Olympic Games was far from guaranteed due to Lee’s health issues over the past year or so, including two types of kidney disease.
Speaking to TODAY’s Hoda Kotb in an exclusive interview aired July 1, Lee said “it feels absolutely insane” to have made the team.
“There were so many times where I thought about quitting and just giving up because I was so sick, and it was just so hard to stay motivated, watching everybody get better, and I’m just like I can’t even get back into the gym and constantly doubting myself,” the 21-year-old recalled.
“But once I had those people around me who lifted me up and supported me and just made sure that I was good, I knew that this is something that I wanted.”
“We didn’t think I would be here. So getting through all of those events and … everything that we had to go through this week to get to where we are right now, it was just such a hard, incredible journey,” she added.
Less than a year after she won big in Tokyo, Lee announced that she would be making a run for the 2024 Paris Games. But her route to the Olympics became more complicated when she was diagnosed with an incurable kidney disease in 2023.
After a temporary pause to focus on her health, Lee returned to training, determined to qualify for her spot on Team USA.
“This comeback was so much more than my return to elite gymnastics. It was me proving to myself that I can overcome hard things, and to hopefully inspire others to never let life’s setbacks stop you from going after your dreams,” she wrote on Instagram in 2023.
As we count down to the Paris Olympics, here’s a look back at what Lee has shared about her physical and mental health journey over the last few years.
