Suni Lee shines with bronze in uneven bars final at Paris Olympics

(PARIS) — As the last to go, America’s Suni Lee knew what she needed to make the podium in the uneven bars final. She stepped up, hit her routine and took home her sixth career Olympic medal.

On Sunday, the 21-year-old Lee of Saint Paul, Minnesota, took home the bronze in the uneven bars final. Lee was the only American woman to qualify for the event. She scored a 14.800 to edge out Belgium’s Nina Derwael for the last spot on the podium.

Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour, the favorite, took gold with a 15.700. Qiyuan Qiu, of China, scored 15.500 for silver.

It was always going to be an uphill battle against Nemour and Qiu, who both had 7.2 start values for their routine. Lee’s routine had a start value of 6.4 in comparison. The win was a bit of redemption for Nemour, who was edged out for gold by Qiu at the 2023 world championship in uneven bars.

The French-born Nemour, just 17, received loud ovations throughout the competition. Nemour previously competed for France, but switched to Algeria, her father’s native country, after a disagreement with the French Gymnastics Federation.

This marks the third Olympic medal for Lee in Paris and her sixth Olympic medal overall. She took home the gold as part of the U.S. team in the all-around and bronze in the individual all-around.

She has a chance for one more medal in Paris and she hopes it will be gold. Lee will be competing in the balance beam final on Monday and is one of the favorites — along with teammate Simone Biles.

Lee also won the bronze medal for the uneven bars in 2021 at the delayed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Lee, who battled back from a debilitating kidney disease to make the team for Paris, earned a bronze medal in the individual all-around just two days after helping the U.S. earn its fourth gold medal in the team competition.

While Biles has sufficiently cemented her spot in sports history as the greatest of all time with a record-breaking 10 Olympic medals, this was the only individual event in which she did not compete during the Paris Games.

Despite earning the top all-around score in qualifying, Biles didn’t participate on the individual apparatus because she fell just one spot shy of the top eight in the uneven bars qualifying round last week.

Biles scored a 14.433, which was just two-tenths of a point behind Helen Kevric of Germany.