Give this friendship a gold medal. Suni Lee exclusively told E! News how she and Simone Biles “always want the best for each other” as they both compete for a spot on the 2024 Olympic team.
While Suni Lee and Simone Biles are both competing for a spot on the 2024 Olympic team, it hasn’t thrown the team dynamic off-balance.
The 2020 teammates cheered each other on at the Xfinity US Gymnastics Championships earlier this month.
“We always want the best for each other,” Suni told E! News in an exclusive interview. “We all want the same spot, but we’re also all rooting for each other because we know the potential that somebody else can bring. We also understand the difficulties and the hardships that you have to go through every single day to be here. So to have the support and to just know that you can lean on each other has been the most helpful thing and something that you don’t see often.”
Simone sprang into action after Suni performed one and a half twists instead of her intended two and didn’t stick the landing during her vault at the championships. And the four-time gold medalist—who experienced the “twisties” at the 2020 Games—could relate.
After Suni vaulted, I knew exactly what was going through her head,” Simone recalled during a press conference. “I dealt with that in Tokyo. So I just knew that she needed some encouragement and somebody to trust her gymnastics for her and to believe in her. So that’s exactly what I did.”
After offering some reassurance, Simone went over to support Suni as she competed on bars—giving her a high-five after she completed her routine.
“I think she knew that I needed help in the moment,” Suni told reporters, per a video shared by USA Today. “She out of anyone understands, basically, what I did on vault. So, she just came over to see if I was OK and basically just helped boost me up and get my confidence back up because at that point I was kinda thinking that this was over. So it was really nice having her in my corner, and she’s just been so supportive.”
Simone won the women’s all-around and Suni placed fourth—with them now both preparing for the 2024 Olympic Team Trials later this month.
“It’s definitely a lot of pressure,” Suni told E!. “I feel like I’ve been feeling it a lot more recently, but also kind of not really. Because I have been trying to take the pressure off of myself and really just knowing that I am doing this for myself. Because I’ve had to overcome so much the past two years to where I didn’t even think that I would be here.”
That includes dealing with a kidney issue that ended her final season on Auburn University’s gymnastics team early in 2023. And though Suni told E! she’s “doing really good” health-wise, she noted she’s still trying to not think too far into the future.
“Making the Olympic team obviously would be a dream,” the gymnast said. “But right now, I want to focus on what’s going to happen today at practice. Like that’s been my biggest thing—just focusing on what’s in front of me and not what’s ahead of me because otherwise I’m going to get so nervous and probably have a mental breakdown.”
And so Suni continues to take care of both her physical and mental health.
“I journal, I go to therapy,” she added, “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 and to feel these ways, it’s a great feeling.”
