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Simone Biles and Suni Lee are among the greats, but not just in gymnastics — they’re skilled digital creators too. After winning gold in the team finals of women’s gymnastics, the 27-year-old and the 21-year-old were overheard planning out a few TikTok videos.
On Tuesday, July 30, Simone was captured by cameras telling her teammate that she wanted to film a TikTok “chomping on the gold medals,” while Suni was heard responding, “OK! And I want to do the one that says, ‘Imagine what we would do if we didn’t win.’” Both Olympians laughed after agreeing to create the clips that night.
Fortunately for fans, both of their ideas made it to social media.
Indeed, Simone Biles and Suni Lee wasted no time on making these TikToks. #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/GTP0dBQlEa
— On Her Turf (@OnHerTurf) July 31, 2024
Suni and Simone’s Paris Olympics achievement came after a long journey. The teammates competed together in 2021 at the Tokyo Olympic Games, where the gymnastics GOAT had to pull out of the team competition due to suffering from the “twisties” — a mental block that prevents a gymnast from measuring where they are in the air. Suni ended up winning the gold medal in the women’s individual all-around final.
@sunisalee_OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALISTSSSS 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
After the games, Simone faced extensive backlash for withdrawing from the games. Online bullies labeled her a “quitter,” and others questioned the artistic gymnast why she left her teammates, even though she remained on the sidelines to support them. The highly decorated Olympian opened up about the ordeal in her Netflix docuseries, Simone Biles: Rising.
“Everywhere I went I felt like they could see ‘loser’ or ‘quitter’ across my head,” she says at one point in the series. “I always felt like everyone was staring at me, even if they weren’t.”
While reflecting on her Olympic comeback and the road to Paris, Simone said, “This time coming back, it’s truly for myself. I never want to look back in ten years and say, ‘What if I could have done another Olympic cycle?’ I at least tried. I didn’t want to be afraid of the sport anymore because you know so much has happened in this sport, so much has scared the living s— out of me that I couldn’t have it take that one last thing from me.”
As for Suni, the former Auburn University student was diagnosed with two rare forms of kidney disease after the 2020 Olympics. As a result, she temporarily stopped competing as a gymnast and struggled with the setback. However, she was determined to return to the Olympic stage.
“We didn’t think I would be here,” Suni said on TODAY earlier this month. “So, getting through all of those events and … everything that we had to go through this week to get to where we are right now, it was just such a hard, incredible journey.”
