St. Paul gymnast Suni Lee has stayed relatively quiet in the months leading up to this week’s U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Trials. She hasn’t granted many interviews and she respectfully declined comment ahead of the competition this weekend, which will take place at Target Center in Minneapolis, and determines whether she qualifies for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
The silence has helped Lee, 21, maintain a sense of normalcy as she navigates the incurable kidney disease that nearly ended her career. She has made numerous trips to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester since her diagnosis last year, while simultaneously trying to push her body to the limit at Midwest Gymnastics in Little Canada to see how much she can handle.
The balancing act occasionally has gotten to be too much, and while her longtime coach Jess Graba admitted that doubt often started to creep in for him, he’s also learned something very important about Lee during their time working together.
When things get tough, she gets tougher.
“This is something that would normally stop people in their tracks, and it hasn’t done that to her,” Graba said. “We’ve got to remember to keep things in perspective at the Olympic Trials. She was in a hospital bed less than a year ago. The fact that she’s here now speaks to her determination.”
The turning point came around Christmas. After working with her doctors to figure out which medications she needed to take, Lee called up Graba to let him know the Olympics was still the goal. They got to work and quickly realized they were going to have to change the way they trained.
Sometimes it was because Lee’s energy levels were so low that she couldn’t complete a workout. Sometimes it was because Lee’s hands were so swollen that she couldn’t grip the uneven bars.
“There’s no road map here for us,” Graba said. “We talk every day, like, ‘What do we think we can do? Let’s see what we can get done.’ All the other athletes can say, ‘This is where I was a month before the Olympic Trials last time.’ We can’t even compare because we’re training completely different.”
As much as the sport has served as an escape for Lee as she has had to accept that the incurable kidney disease is forever going to be a part of her life, it has also been extremely frustrating for her as she has had to accept that her body can no longer do some of the things it could in the past.
“There have been stretches where she feels like, ‘Maybe I don’t have enough to be the same anymore,’ ” Graba said. “She made the decision to keep going because she loves it, though, and I think that’s the biggest reason she’s been continuing on this path. Does she love it every day? No, probably not.”
All the while Graba had to make sure to protect Lee from herself. The last thing they wanted to do was suffer an injury ahead of the Olympic Trials.
“That was probably the hardest part,” Graba said. “Her mentality is go, go, go. She wants to do everything. We’ve been trying to be careful knowing this has been a marathon and we’re getting close to the finish line.”
All the hard work will culminate at the Olympic Trials with the competition beginning on Friday night and concluding on Sunday night. The athletes who qualify to represent Team USA at the Olympics will be announced shortly after everything wraps up. In order for Lee to hear her name called, she either has to finish with the top score in the all-around competition this weekend, or prove herself worthy of being chosen by the selection committee.
“We’ve tried to set up the training where we get her feeling confident,” Graba said. “As soon as she gets out there, she’s going to go for it. We all know that. She lives for that part of it.”
Frankly, to Graba, the results are secondary this weekend. He has watched everything Lee has had to do to get to this moment, and he couldn’t be more proud of what she already has accomplished.
“The only thing I was worried about through all of this was her health,” Graba said. “I’m so happy that we’re on the other side of it now looking at it like, ‘Wow, look at how far she’s come.’ I’m not sure if she’s even processed what she’s done. Just being at the Olympic Trials after going through what she’s gone through is pretty incredible.”
