Suni Lee held down the fort as the only American in Sunday’s uneven bars final, earning a bronze and successfully defending her podium finish in Tokyo.
Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour fulfilled her long-awaited destiny by winning gold. Qiu Qiyuan of China took silver.
Lee had the advantage of going last, which gave her the opportunity to perform the most strategic routine possible. Lee earned a 14.800 with a slightly more conservative routine.
She never thought to dream of winning all-around Olympic gold in Tokyo with Simone Biles in the mix, but a bars medal was always on the agenda there.
For her return to the Olympic Games, she has been candid about the Parisian hardware she’s been eyeing.
Lee had very specific goals in mind for her Olympic encore: a team gold medal, an all-around podium finish, a bars medal and a gold medal on the balance beam. So far, Paris has gone exactly as planned. Now, only beam hangs in the balance. Lee became a six-time Olympic medalist on Sunday, adding to a hefty Paris haul after clinching her second all-around medal Thursday, a bronze, and a gold medal in Tuesday’s team event.
“Coming into this Olympics, all of us felt like we had something to like redeem or prove,” Lee said. “My biggest one is probably beam and bar finals … I’m a little nervous.”
A year ago, Lee was so ill while battling a serious kidney disease that she couldn’t even fasten her grips to mount her signature event.“Having to go through everything that I went through, but making it to here has just been amazing,” Lee said. “I wasn’t expecting to even podium here.”
Despite being born and raised in France, newly minted bars champion Nemour is representing Algeria in Paris. Her gold is the country’s first Olympic medal in gymnastics and the first Olympic gymnastics medal for an African nation.
She switched nationalities last year via her paternal Algerian heritage after a lengthy dispute with the French gymnastics federation that left her Paris hopes in jeopardy. The conflict involved contentions over where the uneven bars prodigy would train and allegations that Nemour’s coach was overworking the 17-year-old.
The French team is sure to be lamenting burned bridges with Nemour this week. She earned a 15.700 Sunday, the highest bars score of the entire Olympics.
The French squad failed to qualify for the team final or any individual finals at all at its home Olympics after a disastrous showing in Sunday’s qualifying round. If they had Nemour’s scores, they would have sailed through to team finals.Belgium’s Nina Derwael, who won the uneven bars gold medal in Tokyo, finished fourth and will not defend her title. She only narrowly earned a Paris berth after dislocating her shoulder, qualifying for the Games on beam, which is her weaker event.
Lee and Simone Biles will contend for a beam medal Monday, which is the final day of gymnastics in Paris.
