Suni Lee picked up her third medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Sunday morning and ran her career collection to six when she earned a bronze in the women's individual final on the uneven bars at Bercy Arena.
The only American in the uneven bars finals after qualifying third, Lee performed last in the eight-person field, scoring a 14.800 to place alongside Kaylia Neymour of Algeria (15.700) and Qiyuan Qiu of China (15.500). Lee's score edged out Belgium's Nina Derwael, who was fourth with a 14.766.
Suni Lee wins an uneven bars bronze medal with a fantastic routine in the final! #ParisOlympics
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 4, 2024
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The 21-year-old from St. Paul, Minn., won bronze in the event at the 2020 Games in Tokyo as part of a three-medal haul that also included gold in the women's all-around event and a silver in the team finals. She won gold with the U.S. women's team in Paris on Tuesday and returned Thursday for a bronze on Thursday in the all-around finals.
Lee's medal count is tied with Aly Raisman for third in U.S. women's history and trails Shannon Miller's seven and the 10 that teammate Simone Biles has accumulated after winning Saturday's vault gold. Biles and Lee will compete in the balance beam final on Monday and Biles and Jordan Chiles are in the floor exercise final Tuesday.
"Last Olympics, I got the bronze medal (on the bars), but it wasn't the routine I wanted," Lee said after her win Sunday. "Today, I feel like I did everything in my power to just keep the consistency coming."
The 6.4-point difficulty value on Lee's routine was among the lowest in the field, which meant her execution had to be near flawless to compensate.
She delivered in that sense, soaring well over the bars on several release maneuvers and sticking the landing outside of a tiny step backward with her left foot to earn an 8.4.
Nemour and Qui started with 7.2-point difficulty values and wound up with execution scores of 8.5 and 8.3, respectively. In fact, Lee's execution was second in the field behind only Nemour. Derwael started a tick ahead of Lee with a 6.5 difficulty but fell behind when she delivered an 8.266 in execution.
Lee's performance in Paris is even more impressive given the context of the kidney disease with which she was diagnosed in 2023 that ended her collegiate season at Auburn University and limited her to just two events at that summer's U.S. championships. She returned to competition in February and qualified for Paris at the Olympic trials in June.
"I couldn't do it without the support of my teammates," she said. "Nobody ever let me give up and I'm so grateful. Who knows what I'd be doing right now if I did."
