When Suni Lee was in a panic hours before the team all-around final at the 2024 Paris Olympics in July, Simone Biles was there for her.
While Lee, 21, admitted to having a “ritual” cry the night before a competition, teammate Jordan Chiles seemed to forget about the routine. “She was like, ‘I’m gonna go get Simone,’” Lee recalled of Chiles, 23, in an interview with Glamour published on Thursday, October 3, calling it a “mental breakdown.”
Biles, who had been asleep before Chiles woke her up, gave sage advice to Lee. “You need to walk around like you’re the reigning Olympic champion, and you need to own it. You need to remind yourself that you’re good enough, and you are on this team for a reason,” Lee said of Biles’ pep talk.
Hours after the conversation, Lee and her teammates took home gold for the event. By the end of the Olympics, Lee earned two more bronze medals for uneven bars and another for all-around.
During her last routine in Paris, Lee fell on the beam. “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,” she said. “I didn’t even think that I was going to be here.
For Lee, the road to the 2024 Paris Olympics was a long one. After competing in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Lee told the outlet that she struggled with feeling like she deserved her wins. (Lee won gold in the all-around and silver with her teammates.) She also began battling a diagnosis of two undisclosed types of kidney disease.
After she competed at the US Classic in August 2023, her health took a turn for the worse. Lee’s condition stabilized in January, months before the 2024 Paris Olympics — or so she thought.
“Nobody knows this, but the week before the Olympic trials, I had to get an infusion because I went into a relapse,” Lee said, adding that the infusion made a “world of a difference.” She ultimately secured a spot on Team USA.
Now, after persevering through her hardships, Lee told the outlet that she’s “at such a better place in my life” both physically and mentally where she “can accept everything that’s happened.”
“Not many people get to come here twice and compete with the best of the best. I just felt absolutely amazing,” she said. “And now I’ve learned to really take everything in, and I think that’s why I’m so happy with all of my medals.”
While focusing on herself, Lee has also made sure to be there for Chiles amid her ongoing bronze medal controversy. “I’ve just been trying to make sure that she’s OK and she realizes that she’s absolutely amazing and nothing is going to define her,” Lee said.
Chiles is now appealing the decision to strip her of the medal. Lee joked that if the International Olympic Committee tried to take Chiles’ medal, she’d “throw it in the ocean or something.”
