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Suni Lee is my new favorite athlete

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For parts of the world, gymnastics is a thing only thought about around the Olympics. For Auburn fans and our elite program, it’s something we think about often. So when St. Paul’s own Suni Lee signed a Letter of Intent to go to Auburn, it’s something we all got very excited about. Fast forward to now, Suni Lee has captivated the entire world with how awesome she is.

Suni Lee; Uneven Bars extraordinaire

Suni Lee is so awesome, even my wife who famously does not like sports and wears a shirt that says “I just hope both teams have fun” to every game I drag her to, calls me in so we can watch the Suni destroy it on the bars together. And we both enjoy the hell out of it. Seeing a 5’0 teenager from my home state who is going to my alma mater be the best in the world at what she does is fucking awesome. A lesser writer would make a joke there about how Suni and I are capable of crushing bars but in different ways, and a better writer wouldn’t have mentioned the idea at all.

Seriously, though, watch this routine and tell me she’s not incredible. There’s several moments where I said, out loud, “holy shit, she’s so cool”.

Quantifying Suni’s Leadership

Suni Lee rules. She stepped up to the plate as the team leader when Simone Biles unfortunately had to bow out. She rallied the team, especially fresh-off-the-bench Jordan Chiles. People on this very site often talk about how Tom Brady rises under pressure, and that’s exactly what Suni did on Tuesday. Then she went out and posted a 15.4 routine. If you’re not super familiar with how Gymnastics scoring works, I got you.

There are two components to the score. Difficulty and Execution. The difficulty is out of 6.8, Execution is out of 10. Add them together, that’s your score. Suni got a 15.4 for the above routine. A 15.4 is the highest mark of ANYONE at the Olympics thus far. Suni’s uneven bars routine was a 6.8 difficulty, which makes it quite literally the most difficult thing you’re able to do in the sport, and then she was damn near perfect. Suni Lee is an American hero as far as I’m concerned.

Right up there with this guy and Hulk Hogan if you ask me.

But then to do all that, and then come to the defense of her teammate shows that she is mature beyond her years.

It was unlikely the US team had a chance to beat the Russian Olympic Committee without Simone Biles anyway. The fact that they didn’t fold under pressure and still taking second (and putting up some impressive performances along the way) is truly fantastic. Those Soviets were probably doping anyway definitely doing the best they can and are very good at what they do. We love Russians here at 10K, maybe one moreso than others, but we’re still big fans of Russians in general…

Early Thursday morning was the individual all-around Gymnastics finals. I knew Suni Lee was gonna kick ass, so I said fuck it why not wake up at 5:50 am.

I woke up, turned on the TV, and got to witness greatness as she took home the gold.

Suni will probably never see this, but it’s important for everyone reading this far to note that she is awesome at what she does in the gym but the real reason people should look up to her is because of her personality and leadership. War Damn Suni!