After the heavy favorites lost the team final, with the withdrawal of Simone Biles in between, the 18-year-old wins the gold medal in the individual all-around.
Suni Lee wins gold for the United States after Simone Biles withdrew from the competition
Sunisa Lee, in the early hours of Thursday morning, won the gold medal in the individual all-around. An event from which the athlete who arrived at Tokyo 2020 as the big star of these Olympic Games had also withdrawn.
With Biles sitting in the stands, Lee gave an exhibition on all apparatus, but especially on the uneven bars, her favorite event.
At the end of the day, the 18-year-old specialist burst into tears, thrilled to be the Olympic all-around gymnastics champion with a total of 57.433, the title that usually distinguishes the world’s best or most complete, by the name of the competition.
In second place was Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade with 57.298 who also took a historic medal for her country and third was Russia’s Angelina Melnikova with 57.199, who was last Tuesday’s team champion.
Sunisa Lee is a junior from Saint Paul (Minnesota), a debutant in the ring event.
She is also the first athlete of Hmong ethnicity to win an Olympic gold medal. A historic achievement for this daughter of Cambodians.
The Hmong community, a Chinese ethnic group that currently lives scattered in some regions of Southeast Asia and other corners of the planet, is also known as the “lost army”, due to its participation in the Vietnam War as a secret ally of the United States.
The title is historic for the United States, because she is the fifth consecutive American to win the entire competition. Carly Patterson Athens 2004, Nastia Lukin Beijing 2008, Gabby Douglas London 2012, Simone Biles Rio 2016 and Suni Lee Tokyo 2020.
