She’s Back: Suni Lee

Fans last saw Lee competing at the national championships in August, when a kidney condition was already causing her serious problems. A post on Lee’s Instagram last month stirred fresh excitement.

Not only did it show Lee back training at her Minnesota gym, but the 20-year-old executed a full-twisting Jaeger release move on the uneven bars. That’s a move no woman has performed in competition, and it turns out that’s the point.

The past year has been filled with uncertainty. Lee admits she “wasn’t in the greatest mindset.” Then, around the beginning of 2024, things started looking better.

“She felt like things were trending in the right way, so she wanted to start training,” said Jess Graba, her longtime coach.

They’ve been back in full training for about six weeks now. Lee describes her kidney condition as being “in remission” and says she’s “doing really good.” And while defending her Olympic title in Paris is the ultimate dream, she’s focusing on baby steps for now.

That’s where the full-twisting Jaeger comes in.

In gymnastics, an athlete who successfully performs a new skill at a major international event gets that skill named for them. Lee has such a skill now ready to go, so that’s her goal: Perform well enough at Winter Cup to be selected for the April world cup meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, and come home with “the Lee” added the sport’s code of points.

“I haven’t thought about anything else besides this meet and doing this skill,” Lee told reporters Friday. “So we really just want to go to Baku hopefully and get it named.”

Getting that out of the way in a lower-stakes international meet would be a sweet way to start what Lee hopes will be a memorable year. This weekend she plans to compete on two events — balance beam and uneven bars — before working her way back to full fitness for the all-around.

If all goes as planned, the St. Paul native would be selected for her second Olympic team in June, when the trials are held across the river from her hometown in Minneapolis. But that’s still months away.

“I’m not trying to think about the Olympics and everything afterward, because you never know what can happen,” Lee said. “So I’m just worrying about what comes next.”

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