Which tournaments will Suni Lee compete in 2024? Everything to know about the Olympic gold medalist's comeback plans
Suni Lee, the Tokyo Olympic gold medalist, is all set to make her comeback in the 2024 season after a setback due to a kidney-related health concern.
After a medal-winning campaign at the Tokyo Olympics, Suni Lee had to almost take a hiatus of a year to recover from a serious health condition. This led her to cut short her thriving collegiate gymnastics career at Auburn University.
Suni revealed that her major goal remains to defend her title at the Paris Olympics in 2024. She opted out of the US World Championships in August last year to focus on her health and recover completely.
Suni Lee will make her 2024 debut at the Winter Cup in Louisville. The highly anticipated event also had former Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas making her comeback. However, Gabby pulled out of the event as she tested positive for COVID-19. Lee would be competing only on uneven bars and the balance beam.
The reason for debuting at the Winter Cup is to qualify for the upcoming Baku World Cup competition which would be held in Azerbaijan from March 7 to 10. She would be submitting the original element which she showcased on her social media handle last month. Lee hopes to complete a full twisting Jaeger catch-and-release on uneven bars and have the skill named after her in Azerbaijan.
“I feel really prepared on beam.Bars… I’m feeling pretty good. We’re kind of just going to get the skill named and then doing a basic bars set. I’m just doing Pak through," she said describing her preparation routine.
Post the events, her main focus would be on the United States Gymnastics Olympic trials which are scheduled from June 27–30, 2024, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Qualifying for the trials would eventually lead her to the dream of defending her Olympic medal in Paris. The gymnastics leg of the Paris Olympics will be held from July 27, 2024, to August 5, 2024.
Suni Lee at the Tokyo Olympics
Suni made her Olympics debut at Tokyo. She qualified for the Tokyo Olympics after finishing second overall in the United States Olympics trials just trailing Simone Biles.
Suni competed in all four events during the qualifying leg of the Olympic Games. Initially, during the finals, Lee was not supposed to compete in the floor exercise. However, after Simone Biles withdrew after the first rotation, Lee replaced her in the floor exercise.
The United States gymnastics team won the silver medal in the team event finishing behind Russia. Lee put forward marvelous performances in the individual events. She clinched the gold medal in the women's individual all-round event with a total score of 57.433 across four events.
The gold medal win made her the first Asian American woman to ever win a gold medal in the Olympic all-round. To honor her historic performance, the governor of Minnesota declared July 30 as "Sunisa Lee Day."