Suni Lee, the defending all-around champion from Tokyo 2021, is prepared to fend off the challengers to her throne. Triumphing her way past the Paris Olympics qualification round, Lee made her motive clear. She is not going back home empty-handed! Indeed so, for she has circumvented many obstacles to scale these heights again. And sometimes, the horrors of her past flash in front of her eyes.
Battling two rare kidney diseases, Lee’s return to the mats once seemed pear-shaped. Her face had puffed up, to the extent that her eyes were swollen shut. But today, she stands in all her glory to defend her Olympic title.
However, the undercurrents of that phase in her life still crawl back at times. Speaking to the New York Times, Lee mentions how that version of her was nearly unrecognizable to the Auburn star. She admits, “I was like, who is this person looking back at me?” It was nearly frightening. She continued, “It was so scary. I didn’t know it then, but the old Suni was gone. And she would never be back.”
