Sunisa Lee one year after her Tokyo 2020 gold: “All I wanted to do was go to the

When U.S. gymnast Sunisa Lee won her sport’s most coveted Olympic title – the women’s all-around gold – at last summer’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, her life changed overnight.

And she never saw it coming.

“It was just so crazy because… I never thought I would ever win the Olympics,” she told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview. “All I wanted to do was go to the Olympics and compete at the Olympics. I never wanted to go for the fame or the money or the attention. It was just always my biggest dream. I wanted to be at the Olympics.”

That dream came true in late June 2021 at the U.S. Olympic trials, where by virtue of her second-place finish in the two-day all-around standings she automatically qualified to the U.S. team.

Though that moment was “surreal and emotional,” she says it didn’t hit her that she was truly an Olympian until weeks later as they drove from their pre-Games training camp to the Tokyo village.

“When I saw the Olympic rings in the water, I got really emotional and I started crying,” Lee recalled. “I was like, ‘I’m actually at the Olympics right now. This is insane.’”

A long road to all-around gold

Her success at the Games, however, was anything but.

Two years earlier, Lee had turned junior talent to senior success on the U.S. gymnastics scene, finishing second at the U.S. nationals behind only Simone Biles. She followed that up with three medals (team gold, uneven bars bronze and floor exercise silver) at the 2019 worlds.

The pandemic caused delay was tough for Lee. She struggled with injury and the loss of close relatives to COVID. But she persevered, again finishing second at the 2021 U.S. championships behind Biles.

That long road was on her mind when she heard her name announced for the U.S. Olympic team for the first time in St. Louis.

Winning Olympic all-around gold was not, however, even though on the second day of the U.S. trials Lee had posted a higher score than Biles. (Biles still won the event, which was based off a combined two-day all-around standing.)

“I was competing for second place [behind Biles] the whole year, so it was just like just go out there and do my normal thing,” Lee said. “I wasn’t thinking about winning.”

When Biles withdrew from the women’s team final to prioritise her mental health and, subsequently, the all-around final days later, Lee felt the impact.

“When that happened, it was devastating,” she said.

Still, Olympic gold wasn’t on her mind.

“I never thought that I would ever be… that I could ever win the Olympics,” she admitted. “I think I just talk so down on myself. I was never like, ‘Oh, I could go to the Olympics and I can maybe win.’”

Her focus remained laser focused: do what she had done all season and not overthink. Lee says she felt that would be enough to land her on the podium.

She delivered in one of the most memorable all-around finals in recent Olympic history, holding off Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade…