Suni Lee falls in balance beam final, ends Paris Olympics with three medals

St. Paul gymnast Suni Lee wanted the balance beam gold medal at the Paris Olympics. “I need a beam gold because I feel like I always make the final and then I always mess up,” she said at the United States Olympic gymnastics trials in Minneapolis in June.

Lee had achieved all her other stated goals at her second Summer Games: win team gold, return to the all-around final, finish in the top three again in the uneven bars. All this at an Olympics she never thought she’d make as she struggled with kidney issues last year.

But that last one, the one that Lee said she needed, was not to be. On Monday, she fell off the balance beam at the end of a tricky tumbling pass and finished out of the medal hunt.

Teammate Simone Biles, the all-around gold medalist, also fell off the beam to miss out on a medal. Biles finished fifth, and Lee sixth.

Many of the eight finalists struggled to stay on the apparatus, opening the door for Alice D’Amato of Italy to win the gold. Zhou Yaqin of China took silver and Manila Esposito of Italy bronze.

“It was just crazy to see how everyone was going down like that,” Lee told reporters afterward. “There’s just so much pressure. You could feel the tension in the room.”

She closed out her Paris Games with that team gold and bronzes in the all-around and uneven bars. That matched her medal total from the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, when she won all-around gold, team silver and uneven bars bronze. Her success in Paris is all the more remarkable because she had not competed internationally since the Tokyo Games.

Just 21, Lee is one of Minnesota’s most decorated Summer Olympians with six career medals. Lakeville swimmer Regan Smith, 22, has eight, after winning five in Paris.

Her six Olympic medals are one behind Shannon Miller for the second most by an American gymnast. Biles has now won 11, after receiving a silver medal in the floor exercise final behind Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade later Monday. Team USA’s Jordan Chiles won bronze.

When told Sunday, after winning bronze on the bars, that she had one of greatest careers of any American gymnast, Lee said: “That’s crazy. I didn’t even think I’d make it this far.”

Competing in Paris was not on her mind when she learned she had serious kidney ailments last year. The illness ended her college career at Auburn and halted her training. Lee said she gained 40 pounds. And this was on top of her struggles dealing with the celebrity and expectations of being an Olympic all-around champion.

“I had to overcome so much, not even with my health issues, but just mentally, too,” Lee said. “There were days where I was fighting demons.”

Her coach, Jess Graba of Midwest Gymnastics in Little Canada, would say to her, “Maybe you should just be done.”

“She had everything to lose coming back,” Graba said.

Lee has said repeatedly in Paris that this Olympics was more fun than Tokyo and that she was taking it easier on herself, handling disappointments with more grace.

“This Olympics I would say I’m really proud of the way that I was able to handle the pressure — I mean, obviously not today — but every other day, I feel like I did pretty well,” she said Monday with a laugh.

On beam, Lee had already removed her difficult mount, which included a backward layout from a springboard, from the routine after struggling with it at trials. The second gymnast to compete Monday, she got off to a good start until a wobble on a dance move. Then her right foot slipped off the beam as she tried to land the last element of her tumbling pass, a backward layout stepout flip.

She got back on the beam and finished her routine, getting a score of 13.100, the same score Biles would earn.

“I don’t even know what happened in my series; I thought it was straight on and then all of a sudden I was on the ground,” Lee said. “But, yeah, I’m just really disappointed because I feel like I have so much more to prove on beam and every single time I get to the final, I can just never do the routine that I want to do.”

Both Lee and Biles complained about how quiet the arena was during the final and were annoyed that cheers, including their own, were being shushed by others in the crowd. Gymnasts are used to competing with commotion going on around them and music playing. But Monday they could clearly hear ring tones and the clicks of camera phones. Lee said she could hear own breathing.

“It adds to the stress,” she added. “Yes, you’re the only one up there, but it just makes you feel like you’re the only one up there.”

Biles called the atmosphere “really weird and awkward.”

“We’ve asked several times if we can have some music or some background noise,” she said.

It was not the way Lee wanted to end her Olympics. She acknowledged she was “so sad” about her beam routine and was seeking comfort food like pho in Paris. But when asked Monday if this was the end of her gymnastics career, she didn’t answer with regrets.

“I’m definitely going to take some off,” Lee said. “If I come back, then I come back. But if I don’t, then I feel like I had a really good run and I’m super proud of everything that I was able to accomplish. Especially this year not even knowing if I would be able to make it here. Either way, I’ll be happy.”

The Star Tribune did not send the writer of this article to the event. This was written using a broadcast, interviews and other material.