There's a freedom that Sunisa Lee feels when she's on the uneven bars that's hard for her to describe.
Sure, there's anxiety before every routine. Funny how it melts away the second that familiar combination of wood and fiberglass hits her grips.
At that point, the American gymnastics star just sort of goes blank. Her innate air awareness — a talent that longtime coach Jess Graba believes Lee simply may have been born with — and the countless hours she's logged in an event that has become her signature combine to allow her to zen out.
"It's just fun to me," she said. "(It's like) flying around out there."
Lee didn't think she would be here a year ago, she was told from doctors that she might have to quit gymnastics. The struggle to get a pair of kidney diseases under control led her weight to fluctuate wildly. At one point, the 2020 Olympic champion believes she put on 45 pounds. In December, she was bedridden.
Three years ago, she fumed after earning a bronze on bars, vowing to reach the top of the podium in Paris.
"You never know what can happen," she said. "So just keep reaching for your dreams."
She didn't. And in a way, she couldn't care less. The bronze she won — much to her own surprise — in an electric bars final on Sunday was in some ways as sweet as any individual honor she's achieved in a career that now has six Olympic medals and counting.
"I just have to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t even supposed to be here," Lee said. "So that’s the thing that’s in the back of my head, because I’m like, ‘You know what? A couple [of] months ago, we didn’t even think this was a possibility.’"
The 21-year-old, who wasn't sure she'd ever get back to this stage, can tie Shannon Miller for the second-most Olympic medals by
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