Tragic Details About Suni Lee

Sunisa Lee, known to her family and fans as Suni, has had a long and difficult journey to land a spot in the 2024 Olympic Games' American gymnastics team. Lee has been doing backflips since she can remember. Her father noticed her interest in gymnastics when she was still very young and encouraged her to keep going. He even built a balance beam so Lee could practice her self-taught moves in the family's backyard. "I was always jumping on the bed or having my dad spot me while I was doing backflips and stuff like that," Lee told TwinCities.com (via CNN).

Lee's mother was not amused by her daughter practicing gymnastics inside the confines of their already cramped family home (Lee has five siblings), so she enrolled her in a gymnastics class — and the rest is history, as they say. Still, Lee continued to use the beam her father built whenever she got restless at home and wanted to practice the routines she learned in class. "If I wasn't in the gym, I was always outside on the beam doing extra things because I didn't want to get behind. I always wanted to get better," she told the Daily Mail. "[My father] would watch me and try and coach me, even though he didn't know what he was talking about."

Lee has had to fight tooth and nail to make her dreams come true since, and she almost gave up a few times when tragedy struck.

Sunisa Lee was getting ready to compete in the national championships in Kansas City in 2019 when something horrible happened — her dad, Houa John, was involved in an accident that injured his spine very badly. John was busy pruning a tree for a friend when he fell off a ladder, suffering various injuries, including a broken wrist, fractured ribs, and a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. This was a big shock, and while speaking to USA Today, Lee admitted that it had been incredibly hard.

Lee and her father had always been thick as thieves. "Me and my dad definitely have the closest bond out of everyone in my family," she told Kare11. In the aftermath of the accident, Lee made sure to visit her dad in the hospital as often as she could. "I've had to sacrifice a lot of things so I can go see my dad and getting training in as well and starting school and stuff like that. So it was hard to get the schedule worked out because there's been so many things happening," she admitted.

With her dad suffering a life-altering injury two days before Sunisa Lee was set to compete at the national championships, her coach was skeptical whether she should be competing. Lee's father had never missed any of her competitions, and the national championships was set to be the first time he wouldn't be in the crowd. What's more is that his accident was taking a mental toll on Lee. Her coach, Jess Graba, broached the subject of withdrawing Lee from the nationals, but Lee's father wouldn't hear any of it and insisted she compete. "She's worked so hard for this," he told Kare 11. "I tell her don't worry about me, just go and do well."

While Lee wanted to compete, she did have some doubts whether she would be able to clear and focus her mind for her routine, but she pushed through. "I wasn't in the best place, I guess, going into it, but I just kind of switched gears and competed for my dad," she told Kare11. Her coach was impressed with her performance. "It didn't surprise me that she was able to do it," Graba said. "She's just such a tough competitor, she's a tough kid."

Lee attributed her stellar performance to her dad's FaceTime call right before she competed. He gave her the pep talk she needed and his excitement managed to hype Lee up for her performance.

If there's one thing every athlete dreads, it's injury, and Sunisa Lee knows the frustration of finding yourself sidelined because of an injury all too well. In fact, she's had to endure this unpleasant experience more times than she could ever have imagined.

In 2018, Lee suffered her first injury. The timing sucked — she had just bagged three silver medals and the team gold at the Pacific Rim Junior Championships and was prepping for the Pan American Junior Championships when she injured her ankle. This prevented her from competing in the junior championships, but Lee was hellbent on competing in the U.S. National Championships, so she rehabbed her injury and managed to compete within mere months, winning bronze and the all-around gold for her uneven bars performance.

2019 saw Lee dealing with yet another injury as she put her all into preparing for that year's U.S. National Championships. This time, she injured her ankle again and suffered a hairline fracture. Still, she managed to compete, walking away with two silver, two gold, and one bronze medal, qualifying for the national team and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. But then the pandemic hit, and Lee found herself unable to go to the gym because everything closed up during lockdown. When she could finally get back to her usual routine, she pushed a little too hard and broke her foot, leaving her sidelined for weeks.

No one saw COVID-19 coming, least of all the athletes training hard for the 2020 Olympics. As the pandemic escalated and lockdowns increased, there was a lot of global uncertainty, but few expected the Olympic Games to be canceled that year. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. Sunisa Lee, like every other athlete preparing to compete, was at her peak, ready to step onto the Olympic stage, when she found herself scrolling X after practice and came upon a devastating tweet: The 2020 Olympic Games had been postponed. "To have that taken away from us without having any control is very hard," she told Elle. "I went through a depressed phase, and it was hard to get out of."

Lee recalled how she presented with classical symptoms of depression. For weeks on end, she spent most of her time either crying or sleeping. The worst part was that she couldn't even keep up her practice routine because her gym was closed. The closure lasted three months, which to Lee felt more like three years. When she could finally go back to the gym, Lee went at it a little too hard and broke her foot. This was an incredibly difficult situation for her, given that she'd been in top shape just months before, ready to compete in the Olympics.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

When U.S. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from the 2020 Olympic Games, Sunisa Lee knew she finally had a chance to bag a gold medal. But with that realization also came an enormous amount of pressure, especially in the all-around without Biles on her team. "I was starting to put a little too much pressure on myself, knowing that Simone was gone and I felt like people were putting that pressure on me that I had to come back with a medal," she told Time. Her teammates supported her, however, which made the whole situation less daunting for Lee. It was when she was getting ready to compete in her third event at the Olympics — the balance beam — when the pressure nearly became too much. "In that moment, I literally felt like I was going to puke, I was so nervous," she later told Today. It was in that moment that she reminded herself of her mantra: nothing more, nothing less, which serves as a reminder that she is good enough. "Nothing more, nothing less... because my normal is good enough, so I don't need to do anything more, nothing less," she said. Lee's gold medal win at the Games had X (formerly Twitter) users talking because it effectively made her the first Hmong gymnast to win gold at the Olympics.

As if being hauled up at home without the prospect of competing in the 2020 Olympic Games anytime soon wasn't already taxing enough on Sunisa Lee's mental health, two of her family members also became sick with COVID. Her aunt and uncle both contracted the disease during lockdown, and Lee was very close to both of them. She told Elle that they used to be her babysitters, and when she started her gymnastics career, they were some of her biggest cheerleaders. Her uncle, a Hmong shaman, used to tend to Lee's injuries with homeopathic medicine. When she hurt her foot, he helped her heal faster with herbal medicines and ginger tea.

Unfortunately, neither Lee's uncle nor her aunt managed to beat COVID, and they both died about two weeks apart. Lee couldn't even attend their funeral in person and instead had to watch from afar over Zoom.

After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, hate crimes against Asians and Asian Americans in the United States surged. This might have had something to do with former President Donald Trump referring to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus." For reasons educated folks can't comprehend, some thought the virus' origin justified unseemly and even violent behavior towards people of Asian descent. In 2021, Lee opened up about being the victim of a hate crime during this period.

Lee was filming "Dancing with the Stars" in Los Angeles when a night out with some of her friends took a turn for the worse. While on their way home, a car passed them, and the passengers yelled racist remarks at Lee and her friends, telling them to go back to China. Lee was furious in the moment but wasn't sure how to respond, given her position in the spotlight. "I didn't do anything to them, and having the reputation, it's so hard because I didn't want to do anything that could get me into trouble. I just let it happen," she told Popsugar. While yelling racist slurs, one of the passengers sprayed pepper spray on Lee's arm before the car drove off.

During an interview with Elle, Lee said she couldn't understand why people harbored so much hate towards people like her. "It would be cool to show that we are more than what they say. I don't know how to explain that..." she said.

After winning gold at the 2020 Olympic Games, Sunisa Lee was ready to take on the world. She was going to Auburn University in Alabama (something she dreamed about doing since she was a kid), and had the 2024 Olympics in her sights. But then she woke up one morning and her entire body was swollen. She described it as waking up and looking like she'd gained a significant amount of weight overnight in an interview with Self. Still, she went to the gym to practice but quickly realized her swollen fingers couldn't hold onto the bars. Doctors were puzzled and thought she had an allergic reaction of some sort, but initial treatment did nothing to bring the swelling down. "I just kept getting more swollen...and I think I gained, like, 40 pounds," Lee said. It took a whole month before doctors figured out that Lee had kidney disease. She hasn't shared what exactly her diagnosis is.

She had to end her sophomore season early because her doctors recommended she stop training and competing immediately. While not publicly sharing her diagnosis, Lee said that her condition is rare and doesn't have a cure yet but that she's on a treatment plan to ease her symptoms.

"How do I just randomly wake up one day swollen, and now I'm stuck with this condition for the rest of my life?" Sunisa Lee told Self that this was her first thought when she received her diagnosis. Dealing with a rare chronic health condition when you're an Olympic athlete is nothing short of devastating, and Lee said that she had a very hard time accepting her new reality. She could no longer train the way she used to, and her body felt different. These changes affected her performance as well, and despite her treatments, Lee still deals with symptoms like swelling, headaches, cramping, hot flushes, and cold spells. All these challenges make it even harder to stick to her training routine.

You might not know this about Lee, but she is incredibly resilient, and despite these challenges, she decided to keep going. "We're just trying to adjust to it and still learning how to work through it," she told Self. She admitted that not always being able to adhere to a consistent practice routine makes it extra difficult to train her body's stamina and endurance.

One might think that winning gold at the Olympic Games should take care of all your insecurities, but this could not be further from the truth. Speaking to Self, Sunisa Lee admitted that, after winning that gold medal at the 2020 Olympic Games, she's been dealing with a pretty severe case of imposter syndrome. The pressure to do even better after her jaw-dropping performance in Tokyo was palpable, and Lee suddenly dealt with nerves and anxiety that she never had before. "I feel like after the Olympics, there's just been so much doubt in like, 'Oh, she shouldn't have won Olympics, blah, blah, blah,' and it really hits my soul," she told ESPN. As a result, her confidence was at an all-time low. "It was like I didn't want to do gymnastics [anymore], I hated it," she admitted. She also had anxiety attacks at some of her meets because people were showing up just to watch her, screaming her name. This negatively impacted her concentration and just made all the pressure she felt that much worse.

Aside from making it difficult to train, Sunisa Lee's kidney disease has also made it challenging to compete, and Lee's been faced with some difficult decisions since her diagnosis. In September 2023, Lee announced that she would not be competing in the U.S. Women's World Championship Selection Event in Texas because of her health. She explained to Olympics.com that juggling her training and doctor's appointments proved challenging on the best of days. "I have been in and out of the gym just because there's just so many doctor's appointments, and I'm taking a lot of medication, so it kind of varies every day," she said. She shared the news that she was opting out of the championships selection event on her Instagram Stories, saying, "It was a very difficult decision, but my health is more important and I'm not in the best shape right now" (via Olympics.com), adding that she was trying to listen to her body. "[I'm trying to stay] true to myself rather than pushing myself and not being satisfied with the results," she explained.

When Sunisa Lee's appearance started to change because of her kidney disease, her followers — and the internet trolls — noticed, and the latter couldn't hop on their keyboards fast enough to criticize Lee's appearance. "There was a point where I didn't want to show my face on social media," she told Elle. "You just know people are always going to say something, but I've just had to learn that none of that stuff matters." Still, the negative and downright nasty comments still hurt. "I just don't like the feeling of when people don't like you," Lee admitted. Her coaches and managers advised her to stay off social media so she wouldn't have to see the negative comments, but social media had also become part of her job, making it even harder to unplug from. Then there was Lee's inner critic constantly trying to convince her that she wasn't good enough. "It took a toll on my mental health, and [led to] me just not even wanting to look in the mirror," she admitted.

Sunisa Lee might be on her way to the 2024 Paris Olympics, but she almost quit gymnastics before making it onto the U.S. team. Lee's doctors told her that it was very likely her kidney disease would end her career as a gymnast. "At that point, I felt that my body had failed me," she told Forbes, adding that she had many "dark days" after her doctors broke the news. Lee knows better than anyone that gymnastics requires your body to be in top condition, and hers was constantly fluctuating. "There were so many times when I wanted to quit because I thought my health wouldn't allow me to do this again," she admitted. "But I kept my eyes on Paris and took each day as it came. Some days were battles, and some days I felt like the old me."

Despite all odds, Lee is heading to the 2024 Olympics, and while it remains to be seen whether she'll bag another gold medal, we think she's already won one of the hardest battles anyone can face, and that should be applauded.