Suni Lee took home her second medal at the Paris Olympics on Thursday, putting an exclamation point on her tremendous gymnastics comeback.
Lee earned bronze in the individual all-around final, coming in behind Team USA teammate Simone Biles and Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who earned gold and silver, respectively.
The third-place finish is yet another honor at this year’s Summer Games for the 21-year-old Lee after returning to the sport following a battle with two types of kidney diseases over the past year-plus.
“We didn’t think I would be here,” Lee told Hoda Kotb of the “Today” show before the 2024 Olympic games. “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.
“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.”
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Lee earned her first gold medal of this year’s Olympics in the team all-around on Tuesday alongside Biles.
Her success comes just a year after discovering she suddenly gained more than 40 pounds in 2023 and subsequently found out she was suffering from kidney disease.
Lee stepped away from the game to focus on her health before returning to training to concentrate on qualifying for the summer games.
“I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it because I didn’t think that I could,” Lee told reporters on Thursday.
Lee, who captured the individual gold medal in the all-around in 2020, retained her spot on Team USA earlier this year.
“This comeback was so much more than my return to elite gymnastics,” Lee wrote on Instagram last August. “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.”
Thursday’s competition was the second for Lee during the Olympic Games — and in taking home bronze, she became the first to win gold in all-around one Games then earn another medal in the next since Nadia Comaneci in 1976 and ’80.
She will compete in the beam event final on Sunday, and the bars event final the next day in her final 2024 Olympics appearance.