Suni Lee, reigning Olympic women’s gymnastics all-around gold medalist, is known to be a master of two events: uneven bars and balance beam. She earned a bronze medal on bars in Tokyo but was left empty-handed on beam, and she wants redemption.
Suni Lee wants balance beam gold. These elements could get her there.
Suni Lee said after the Olympic trials in Minneapolis that she “need[s] a beam gold.” We look at key moments in her routine that could make the difference.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
July 19, 2024 at 12:23PM
After making the U.S. Olympic team in Minneapolis in June, she said, “I really want a beam gold. Like, I need a beam gold because I feel like I always make the final and then I always mess up.”
Here are some of the skills in her routine, captured while she practiced at Target Center prior to the team trials, that could get her that gleaming hardware.
First connection test
Lee’s first major test after mounting the 4-inch plank comes with a front aerial, split jump, back handspring combo.
The front aerial, akin to a front walkover but without her hands touching the beam, has a tricky blind landing. She immediately connects that to a split jump, with one leg to the front and another to the back. It must meet or exceed a 180-degree split to get full credit.
In recent competitions, she has occasionally wobbled enough on the split jump landing that she has — in the moment — nixed the third element of this series: the back handspring. By itself, a back handspring should be an easy skill for a gymnast of Lee’s caliber, but if the jump landing isn’t solid, she has a higher chance of falling on the handspring.
Done well, this series has a delightful forward-backward visual pattern, and she would get bonus difficulty points if all three are connected seamlessly, without pauses.
Forward and back: After landing the jump shown nearly at its peak above, Lee launches her body back in the other direction to land in the same spot she began.
Tricky tumbling pass
Lee’s main tumbling pass down the beam is a sticky three-element combination: a side aerial followed by two backward layout stepout flips. Her hands don’t touch the beam at all during this series, and she does it all in a surprisingly compact space, in this view moving from the right side of the beam to the left.
The side aerial is like a cartwheel, the layouts like back handsprings — but all sans hands. Instead, her arms act as a fulcrum balance mechanism to keep her body in check.
At the Olympic trials in June, this pass gave her trouble on both nights. On night one, she wobbled on the first layout and didn’t do the second. On night two, she did both but had dramatic unsteadiness in the landing, which nearly resulted in her second fall of the night.
To get full difficulty credit, she must do all three and would gain a bonus if they’re smoothly linked together.
Cartwheel, no hands: Lee’s first move is an aerial, which requires rotating the hips to the side and back to square with the beam.
Backward launch: The back-to-back layouts allow her to see the landing clearly each time, but any lean in her posture can be problematic.
Solid landing: She connects all three so quickly that a firm and confident finish position is of utmost importance.
Ring leap of faith
One of Lee’s most difficult skills is a switch ring leap. She generally doesn’t connect it to anything, but as a stand-alone skill, its difficulty is rated an E on a scale of A to J. For reference, only two other skills in her routine have this rating. One is her mount, and the other is the very common triple wolf turn.
What makes this jump so hard? She begins by planting her left foot and bringing her outstretched right leg forward while springing up vertically, and then switches the right leg’s direction, swinging it back behind her head. The final hurdle is the bend in the right knee as she arches her back and tips her head up to create the visual illusion of a ring.
Getting a switch split to 180 degrees or more is hard on its own, but removing her gaze from the beam makes the landing more difficult. She has to trust that her left foot will find the landing.
Blink and you’ll miss it: The switch in this leap happens so fast — as if she is making a last-second decision — that it can feel subtle.
Tiny bend, big benefit: The grace of the ring leap lies in the bent back leg as it nearly meets the head. But effortlessness in gymnastics is rarely easy.
What else to watch for
Of course, these breakdowns don’t encompass Lee’s full beam routine.
Her mount, which includes a backward layout from a springboard, has a high difficulty rating. Lee fell off the beam — a big deduction — after this mount on the second day of the Olympic trials, which left her visibly shaken for the rest of the routine.
She’ll do several dance elements and poses between the acrobatic skills, plus another series of jumps and leaps, all requirements of balance beam routines. A turn on one foot with at least a full revolution is also obligatory, and Lee, like many other gymnasts, performs the triple wolf variety — spinning 1080 degrees in a squat with one leg extended — because it nets a high difficulty score when done well.
Finally, Lee’s dismount is a full-twisting gainer layout known as a Steingruber, named for Swiss gymnast Giulia Steingruber.
Here’s a look at her full routine from the U.S. Championships in early June:
Maybe it was nerves for her first World Cup race back in nearly six years. Maybe it was a bumpier course than she's used to racing on. Maybe it was some wrong lines or angles.
