The article originally appeared on E! Online.
Sunisa "Suni" Lee may be the reigning all-around women's gymnastics champion, but for a while, she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to return to defend her title at the 2024 Paris Olympics this summer.
The 20-year-old, who enrolled at Auburn University after winning gold at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, made the tough decision to step off the mat and end her college career in April due to a "non-gymnastics health-related issue" that she later shared was an incurable kidney disease.
And though she declined the invitation to attend the U.S. team selection camp for the world championships in September, she is still hoping to recover in time to compete in Paris, an impressive feat considering her health issues almost ended her career permanently.
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"It was really scary and really, really heartbreaking," Lee told E! News in an exclusive interview. "I definitely went through a little bit of a mental spiral because gymnastics is my outlet and it's my safe space."
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Especially difficult for Lee was not being able to turn to her usual outlet for coping with adversity while battling her kidney illness, which caused her to gain 40 pounds.
"I really didn't know what to do with myself because I couldn't practice at all," she shared. "I really just had to sit in my bed and be sad because I couldn't do anything. I could barely move. I couldn't fit into my clothes and it was just so scary."
Unable to take out her frustrations on the bar or beam, Lee said "a lot of therapy" helped her cope with her condition, "because when it was happening," she explained, "I had to see my life without gymnastics and that was a scary thing."
However, Lee wasn't ready to give up on her dream and was able to compete in August when she qualified for the U.S. Championships, earning a bronze on the beam. Though she later declined to compete at the world championships, Lee called her return at the U.S. Classic "one of the most special things that I will forever cherish" because she and her doctors weren't even sure it would be possible.
"When I went there, I didn't care about winning a medal or placing on anything," she continued. "I really just wanted to go there and prove to myself that I was able to do it, because I kept telling myself, 'I'm never going to be able to do it again.'"
But she did.
"I learned that nothing's going to stop me," Lee said of her return. "If I want something, I'm going to put my head into it and I'm going to get it. I kept telling myself that I wasn't going to be able to do it and I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it again, because I did lose so much faith in myself."
Now, faith fully restored in her resiliency, Lee is hoping to return for the Paris games, which begin in July 2024. And while a medal "would mean so much" after everything Lee has endured, it's not her ultimate goal.
"I'm at the point where I'm like, 'I just want to make it there,'" Lee shared. "If I can make it there with everything going on, that's going to be as special as winning a gold medal."
