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Sunisa Lee to Lead US Women Gymnasts in Quest for Gold Medal at Tokyo
Olympics

Buasawan Simmala

   Sunisa Lee, at 18 the youngest member of the U.S. women's Olympics
   gymnastic team, has become its best hope to secure a gold medal at the
   Tokyo Olympics when the individual all-around competition begins
   Thursday.

   Lee was thrust into the spotlight when teammate Simone Biles suddenly
   withdrew from the overall team finals Tuesday after failing to execute
   her planned maneuver in the vault and stumbled on her landing. Despite
   no pre-event training, Lee took Biles' place in the floor routine and
   gave a sterling performance that helped the Americans win the silver
   medal.

   Besides being the youngest member of the 2020 team, Lee is also the
   first person of Hmong descent to make the U.S. Olympics team. The
   native of St. Paul, in the U.S. state of Minnesota, is a member of the
   large ethnic Hmong community that settled in the midwestern city and
   other parts of the U.S. in the late 1970s as refugees after secretly
   fighting alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War, but later
   abandoned after the war ended.

   Yeev Thoj, Sunisa Lee's mother, told VOA's Lao Service she and her
   husband, John Lee, first enrolled their daughter in gymnastics to keep
   her and her five siblings active. In time, she said they noticed Sunisa
   was "kind of a little naturally gifted" in the sport.

   "When she goes to gymnastics, she seems to enjoy and like it and was
   able to progress like gymnastic skill more and more each year, and
   that's kind of who she is," she said.

   Lee's Olympic journey has been filled with adversity in recent years,
   the most notable instance of which occurred in 2019, when her father
   was left paralyzed from the chest down after he fell off a ladder just
   days before she was due to compete at the U.S. National Championships.
   She completed as planned at her father's urging, and finished second
   behind Biles in the all-around competition.

   She was also unable to train last year after her gym closed at the
   height of the pandemic, which claimed the lives of her aunt and uncle.
   She then suffered a broken foot after her gym reopened and she resumed
   training.

   VOA's Lao Service contributed to this report.

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