Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour uneven bars gold. Suni Lee the bronze. : NPR

NPR is in Paris for the 2024 Summer season Olympics. For extra of our protection from the video games head to our newest updates.

PARIS — The U.S. gymnast Suni Lee has gained the bronze medal within the Olympic uneven bars remaining, her third medal of the 2024 Video games and a exceptional cap to her return to gymnastics after a sudden onset of kidney illness final yr had threatened to finish her profession.

In Sunday’s competitors at Bercy Area in Paris, Lee completed behind the proficient 17-year-old Kaylia Nemour of Algeria, whose rating of 15.7 gained her the gold. Qiu Qiyuan, additionally 17, of China scored 15.5 to win silver.

For Nemour who was born and raised in France, the gold is further significant. She started representing Algeria final yr after the French Gymnastics Federation didn’t clear her to renew competitors following knee surgical procedure in 2021. This title is a primary for Algeria and any African gymnast on the Olympic Video games.

Uneven bars are Lee’s strongest occasion. Her rating of 14.8 was her second-highest rating on the bars on this Olympics, simply behind her tally within the particular person all-around occasion, wherein she additionally gained bronze.

The 21-year-old Lee carried out final. After seeing her rivals’ excessive scores, she selected to not add problem to the routines she’d carried out final week, which might have given her an opportunity at a gold or silver. After touchdown her routine, she stated she was thrilled.

“It feels wonderful to have it over with, truthfully. I used to be so nervous watching everybody,” Lee stated afterward. “I bought to look at everybody and it put the strain on me just a little bit. However I am actually completely satisfied that it did, as a result of I really feel like I did every little thing that I got here to do.”

After profitable a shock gold medal within the particular person all-around on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Lee had set her deal with returning to the Olympics right here in Paris.

However these plans gave the impression to be derailed early final yr, when two severe kidney situations pressured her to retire early from her faculty gymnastics profession. The sickness brought on fast weight acquire and swelling so intense that she discovered it tough to bend her joints or grip the uneven bars. Her docs had been, at first, stumped concerning the trigger. At occasions, she believed she would by no means compete once more.

The USA’s Sunisa Lee celebrates profitable the bronze medal on the finish of the ladies’s uneven bars remaining Sunday. It was her third medal of the Video games and sixth Olympic medal general.

Lionel Bonaventure/AFP by way of Getty Photographs

cover caption

toggle caption

Lionel Bonaventure/AFP by way of Getty Photographs

“I am so, so glad that I by no means gave up, as a result of there have been so many occasions the place I thought of quitting and strolling away from the game as a result of I did not assume that I’d ever get so far,” she stated in June after qualifying for the U.S. Olympic crew.

Sunday’s bronze is Lee’s third and remaining medal of the 2024 Video games after she gained bronze within the particular person all-around remaining and helped the U.S. win a gold within the crew occasion.

“She had every little thing to lose coming again. There was nothing actually for her to show — aside from to herself,” her coach Jess Graba stated Sunday.