Suni Lee Wins Bronze During Gymnastics All-Around Final
2024 Olympics: Simone Biles Leads Team USA to Gold in Paris Gymnastics Final
Suni Lee’s latest Parisian souvenir? A bronze medal.
Following the U.S. women’s gymnastics team’s golden win at the 2024 Olympics in the team all-around, the athlete earned third place for the individual all-around competition Aug. 1.
The 21-year-old proved her weight in gold during her four events, finishing with a total score of 56.465. Meanwhile, Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade earned silver with a 57.932 while Suni’s teammate Simone Biles, the other athlete representing USA during the competition, clinched gold with a total score of 59.131—no surrpise to anyone.
Suni—who is the 2020 Olympic individual all-around champion—made her way to the mat in her dazzling bright red leotard adorned with firework-like diamond patterns , beginning with the vault where she earned a 13.933. She continued on to earn a 13.666 on the floor—which secured her bronze medal victory—as well as a 14 even on the beam and a 14.866 on the uneven bars, her signature event. ‘
Her latest performance comes two days after Team USA—including Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles and Hezly Rivera—took home their first medals of the 2024 Paris Olympics. And it was definitely a team effort.
Suni competed in the uneven bars, balance beam and floor; Jade returned for the vault after suffering a fall June 28; and Simone and Jordan competed in vault, uneven bars, floor exercise and balance beam.
Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images
For Suni, making it back on the Olympic team after the 2020 games in Tokyo wasn’t an easy feat. Last year, the gymnast was diagnosed with a kidney disease, which led to her prematurely ending her athletics career at Auburn University. And it wasn’t clear whether she’d ever return to the mat.
“I was on medicine for a couple of months,” she recalled in an interview with NBC. “It was just making me really weak. I didn’t have stamina anymore. I really had to relearn everything and that was the hardest part because gymnastics is my safe place.”
But she was determined to be in France and did so by maintaining consistency at the gym and in her self-care.
“I’ve definitely been taking a lot of time for myself,” Suni told E! News in March. “I think that’s one thing about this year, I’ve really learned to prioritize my well-being and just making sure that everything that I’m doing is adding to my life, not really taking away.”
Amid her training, she admitted that she was also battling self-doubt.
“I journal, I go to therapy,” she explained to E!, “and that’s been the biggest game changer because there was a lot of self-doubt in there and a lot of pressure and a lot of not knowing where it all stemmed from. So, to be able to talk about it, speak about it and know that it’s OK to not be OK, it’s a great feeling.”
Now, keep reading to learn more about Team USA’s 2024 Olympic athletes.
Katie Chan/Action Plus
Noah Lyles
Noah Lyles is in the running to be declared the fastest man in the world.
The 2023 world champion in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4×100 meter relay—the rare sprint treble—has designs on sweeping all three in Paris after a surprising bronze finish in the 100 in Tokyo.
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Simone Biles
Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history, full stop. But the 2016 all-around Olympic gold medalist has unfinished business to attend to in Paris after a case of the twisties prompted her to pull out of most events in Tokyo in 2021.
Representing Team USA alongside Biles are Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera.
Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF
Alyssa Naeher
Longtime women’s national soccer team goalie Alyssa Naeher has two World Cup titles, a slew of impressive stats and a big gap in her resume she’d love to fill with Paris gold after the squad’s bronze showing in Tokyo.
Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Sha’Carri Richardson
Sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was supposed to make her Olympics debut in Tokyo but was sidelined after a positive marijuana test. Now the reigning world champion in the 100 meters, she’s a favorite to torch the competition in Paris in her signature event.
Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
Katie Ledecky
Swimmer Katie Ledecky has 10 Olympic medals, seven of them gold, and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May. Competing in her fourth Games, the Stanford grad has a chance to become the first female swimmer to win gold four straight times if she dominates once again in the 800 meters.
Andrea Vilchez/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF
Walker Zimmerman
Olympic soccer requires the men’s teams to be all 23-and-younger with three spots allowed for “overage” players—which is why veteran defender Walker Zimmerman thought his dream of playing on this stage ended when the U.S. men failed to qualify in 2016.
“Then as things materialized this year,” the 31-year-old told the LA Times, “just getting the opportunity is amazing.”
Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Nikki Hiltz
“If you had asked me at the Trials in 2021 if I regretted coming out, I would have said yes,” runner Nikki Hiltz told NBC Sports of coming out as trans and nonbinary not long before they failed to qualify for Tokyo.
But Hiltz didn’t give up—on their truth or their sport—winning U.S. indoor and outdoor titles in the 1500m in 2023, repeating the indoor feat in 2024 and running a field-leading 3:55.33 to take the women’s 1500m at Trials on June 30.
“It’s the last day of Pride Month,” Hiltz told NBC Sports at the finish line, “and I wanted to run this one for my community.”
Elsa/Getty Images
Coco Gauff
Tennis champ Coco Gauff, winner of the 2023 U.S. Open, is ranked second in the world heading into Paris. The 20-year-old is making her Olympics debut after a positive COVID test dashed her plans for Tokyo.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Victor Montalvo
Top-ranked in the U.S. and No. 2 in the world, B-boy Victor Montalvo is ready to turn the Olympics on its head as breaking makes its long-awaited debut at the Paris Games.
Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images
LeBron James
There’s never only one superstar on the U.S. men’s basketball team, but four-time NBA champion LeBron James is appearing in what will almost certainly be his last Olympics and he’ll be one of Team USA’s two designated flagbearers at the July 26 Opening Ceremony.
James told reporters he was “super-appreciative and-super humbled” by the honor.
Naomi Baker/Getty Images
Chuck Aoki
There’s nothing not badass about wheelchair rugby and Chuck Aoki has been a star of the U.S. Paralympic team since London in 2012. With a bronze and two silvers under his belt, winning gold in Paris would really complement his collection.
Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Hunter Woodhall
While Hunter Woodhall is not least known for being long-jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall‘s supportive other half, the University of Arkansas grad is also a sprinting machine. The two-time Paralympian—and first-ever double-amputee athlete to earn an NCAA Division I scholarship—heads to Paris having dominated in the men’s T62 400m and T62 100m at Trials.
Quinn Harris/Getty Images
Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth
Two athletes, but a packaged set as far as beach volleyball is concerned. Louisiana State alums and best friends Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss hadn’t even turned pro yet when, in April 2021, Nuss gifted Kloth an ankle bracelet for her birthday inscribed with “August 11, 2024.”
If you’re guessing that’s the date of the women’s finals at the Paris Olympics, you are correct.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Oksana Masters
Six-time Paralympian Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine in 1989 with radiation-related birth defects—including webbed fingers and tibial malformation—connected to the Chernobyl disaster. Growing up in Louisville, Ky., with adoptive mom Gay Masters, she underwent a number of surgeries, including respective leg amputations at 9 and 14—after which she took up rowing.
But sun, snow… It’s all the same for the seven-time gold medalist, who has three Winter Paralympics as a para-cross-country skier and para-biathlete and three Summer Paralympics as a para-cyclist and para-rower under her belt heading into Paris, where she’ll compete in cycling events.
Morgan Hancock/Getty Images
Caroline Marks
After finishing just shy of the podium in Tokyo, surfer Caroline Marks is ready to ride her 2023 world title to Olympic victory in… Well, not Paris. All of the surfing will be taking place at Teahupo’o on Tahiti, nearly 10,000 miles away from the rest of the festivities.
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Jessica Long
Swimmer Jessica Long, whose Instagram bio reads “Born without legs + living my best life,” is headed to her sixth Paralympics. The 29-time medalist, 16 of them gold, is pretty much just racing for bragging rights at this point.
Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images
A’ja Wilson
Las Vegas Aces, um, ace and two-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson will be leading the U.S. women’s basketball team in their quest for their eighth straight gold medal. (The men are looking for only their fifth straight, having been vanquished in 2004.)
Al Bello/Getty Images
Caeleb Dressel
Butterfly and freestylin’ fool Caeleb Dressel won five gold medals in Tokyo, no big deal, to bring his career Olympic gold tally to seven. Paris will be the swimmer’s third Games and first as a dad, having welcomed son August Wilder Dressel with wife Meghan Dressel in February.
Maja Hitij/Getty Images
Jessica Parratto and Delaney Schnell
After Jessica Parratto earned a silver medal in Tokyo for women’s synchronized 10m platform with partner Delaney Schnell—Team USA’s first-ever medal in that event—the 5-foot-2 athlete retired to, as she told NBC Sports, “finally be a normal person.”
She did that for, like, a year until Schnell wooed her back into the pool. But to be clear, Parratto said of her return before they qualified for Paris, “I didn’t do it because she wanted me to. I really did it because I wanted to.”
But she doesn’t mind the camaraderie, either. When Schnell banged her feet at the Montreal Diving World Cup in May, Parratto’s first international event back from retirement, “it was a really good bonding moment for us,” she said, “and just being like, okay, we got this.”
Elsa/Getty Images
Fred Richard
The U.S. men do gymnastics, too, and Fred Richard was the top scorer on both nights of the 2024 Olympic Trials. Obviously fans will flip if the 2023 NCAA all-around (and horizontal bars, and parallel bars) champion from University of Michigan helps the national team make an Olympic podium for the first time since 2008.
Watch the 2024 Paris Olympics daily on NBC and Peacock until the summer games end with the Closing Ceremony on Sunday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
