Glamour magazine recently named Suni Lee as one of their Women of the Year. The Olympic gold medalist attended the awards ceremony on Tuesday.
The awards are given to “trailblazers, rule breakers, visionaries, and champions who have defined each year.” The 2024 class included people like abortion rights activist Hadley Duvall and actress Taraji P. Henson.
Lee was honored alongside several other prominent athletes including Serena Williams and Allyson Felix. She attended the awards celebration wearing a stunning silver dress.
Later in the night, she even got to share a moment with Beyonce.
Lee was chosen for the strength and resilience she showed training for the Olympics while battling kidney disease.
In their profile of Lee, Glamour highlighted her journey to the Paris 2024 Olympics. The young gymnast talked openly about how the changes to her body and her training regimen impacted her mental health.
“The hardest thing was just waking up and going to the gym, forcing myself, because a part of me was just so embarrassed and ashamed to show my face,” Lee says. “There are so many little girls in the gym that look up to me, and I just felt I was kind of letting them down, because I wasn’t able to do a lot of things.”
In the piece, Lee also discusses how she grounded herself at the Olympics, acknowledging the support of teammates like Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles and Hezly Rivera.
Lee left the Olympics with a team gold medal, a bronze medal in the all-around and a bronze medal on the uneven bars. Now, she says she’s doing better than ever.
“I’m at such a better place in my life, not even just physically but mentally, to where I can accept everything that’s happened,” Lee said in the profile. “Not many people get to come here twice and compete with the best of the best. I just felt absolutely amazing. And now I’ve learned to really take everything in, and I think that’s why I’m so happy with all of my medals.”
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