The last two years have been tough for American gymnast Suni Lee. In 2019, her father, John, fell from a ladder while helping a neighbor to cut a tree and was paralyzed in the chest as a result. In 2020, she lost an aunt and uncle to COVID, while her chance to compete in the Tokyo Olympics was postponed.
Those difficulties - as well as the COVID-forced hiatus and ankle injury she has dealt with over the past year - have given her a new appreciation for gymnastics ahead of the 2021 Olympics.
"Looking back, I think it's helped me a lot mentally and physically," Lee said of the year-long postponement of the Games, per "People" magazine. "Mentally it's helped me because I had to take that short break from gymnastics, which is obviously tough, but it was something that needed to be done. Right now, mentally it's helped because it made me more Wants even more."
It's good that the 18-year-old is strong and motivated, because she has some pressure to represent the Hmong community positively.
Suni Lee is the first Hmong American Olympic gymnast
Lee is making history at the Games as the first Hmong American to compete in the Olympics. The Hmong people are an ethnic group that originated in Southeast Asia, including parts of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. There are an estimated 9 million to 11 million of them in the world, and Lee is representing them as well as Team USA.
"When a Hmong person is capable of doing something, whether good or bad, it reflects our entire community," said Seng Alex Wang, lecturer in Asian American Studies at California State University, told MPRNews.org. "Since the Hmong people also live in different countries, although she is Hmong American, in some ways, she also represents the entire global Hmong community."
In particular, Li's participation in the Olympics is representative of some major cultural changes among the Hmong people in recent years, as noted by Dr. Mekao Hang, dean of the Morrison Family College of Health at St. Thomas University.
"When I was of SUNY's age, we weren't really allowed to participate in high school sports, much less the activities that happen in middle school or elementary schools. To definitely love girls as kids Was supposed to, but to stay home and help families,” Hang said.
"Sunny represents so much more than athletics and competition, the fact that she's reached this threshold in her career. It's just so many women of my generation trying to fight in our 40s when we were 20." We're in the U.S. as we remember not to really be allowed to participate in tennis or gymnastics or any kind of sport."
For Li Hmong, it is a symbol of pride and progress. She hopes to become one for Team USA as well.
Suni Lee's performance at the US Olympic Trials
The 5-0 gymnast was the No. 2 finisher at the US Olympic Team Trials in June. He made an automatic bid for the Olympics with Simone Biles after posting a score of 115.832 during the event. He is just 2.2 points behind Biles in the standings.
Lee earned three medals for his efforts in the team competition (gold), on the floor (silver) and uneven bars (bronze) at the 2019 World Gymnastics Championships. She considers her strongest events to be the bar and balance beam and believes she can help Team USA in both events during the Olympics.
“I focus more on the bar and beam simply because they are my strongest events, and I try to maintain what I can on the floor and vault. I am training consistently on all events, ' Lee told People. "It's just that I spend more time on the bar and beam. I obviously want to perfect them and make the best of them because those are going to be my strongest events and two events that I can contribute to the team." "