US Olympic gymnast Suni Lee was a good sport about her falling off the balance beam by laughing about it afterward.
Lee lost her chance at winning a medal after she slipped and fell during her routine at the women's gymnastics balance beam final on Monday. She placed sixth with a score of 13.100.
Her "Golden Girls" teammate, ten-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles, also fell during her balance beam routine during the penultimate competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
After Lee and Biles were eliminated from medal contention, Lee, a six-time member of the U.S. women's national gymnastics team, jumped on a TikTok Olympics trend to poke fun at her slippery performance.
The trend involved Olympic hopefuls across various athletic disciplines sharing their sports fail videos as evidence of why they didn't make the cut for Paris 2024.
The clumsy action clips were accompanied by a remixed version of the U.S. national anthem, called “Star Bangled (Bass Boosted)."
Lee used the same song as the soundtrack to her sports fail video on TikTok and wrote:
“Unfortunately I was selected for the Olympics."
It turns out the 21-year-old owned the TikTok challenge and won internet "gold."
Gravity may have bested her, but her self-effacing post only made the internet fall for her even more.
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Some users pointed out the real culprit responsible for the painful gaffe.
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Suni, you're still a winner in our eyes.
Even Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who was just selected to be Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate in the 2024 election, saw her as an all-around champion back in 2021. He designated July 30 that year as "Sunisa Lee Day," following her gold-winning performance in the women's individual all-around competition at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
In Paris 2024, Lee won the bronze in the all-around final, a second bronze for her performance on the uneven bars final, and gold in the team final during competitions.
Despite ending her NCAA gymnastics career early during her sophomore season in March 2023 due to her unspecified kidney disease diagnosis, Lee said returning to compete in the Olympics was her greatest achievement.
Lee told People magazine that her comeback was her “redemption tour from the last Olympics” and that she is “trying to give myself grace for not being, I guess fully back to normal Suni."
She continued:
"I think everything just means so much more because I didn't think that I would be here."
"And just knowing that I was able to overcome everything and never gave up was probably the most special moment, I guess for me, in winning all of those medals."
With nine world championship and Olympic medals, Lee is the sixth-most-decorated American female gymnast.
Now she is a TikTok trending Queen who can pick herself up, dust herself off, and give the internet a cheeky wink and a smile.
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