The gymnast was considering quitting her sport in the run-up to the Olympics. But when Simone Biles stepped away she grabbed her chance to shine
On Thursday night in Tokyo, moments after Sunisa Lee was awarded the gold medal in the women’s gymnastics all-around competition, the 18-year-old American called the experience “surreal.”
And of course it was. Lee, like every other US gymnast for most of the past decade, was supposed to play second fiddle, at best, to Simone Biles in Tokyo. In 2016, Biles’s teammate Laurie Hernandez told reporters at the Olympics: “If you get silver, you’re the best, because Simone doesn’t count.”
Related: Sunisa Lee steps up in Biles’s absence to win Olympic women’s gymnastics all-around
