Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour uneven bars gold. Suni Lee the bronze. : NPR

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PARIS — The U.S. gymnast Suni Lee has received the bronze medal within the Olympic uneven bars closing, her third medal of the 2024 Video games and a exceptional cap to her return to gymnastics after a sudden onset of kidney illness final 12 months had threatened to finish her profession.

In Sunday’s competitors at Bercy Enviornment in Paris, Lee completed behind the proficient 17-year-old Kaylia Nemour of Algeria, whose rating of 15.7 received her the gold. Qiu Qiyuan, additionally 17, of China scored 15.5 to win silver.

For Nemour who was born and raised in France, the gold is further significant. She started representing Algeria final 12 months after the French Gymnastics Federation didn’t clear her to renew competitors following knee surgical procedure in 2021. This title is a primary for Algeria and any African gymnast on the Olympic Video games.

Uneven bars are Lee’s strongest occasion. Her rating of 14.8 was her second-highest rating on the bars on this Olympics, simply behind her tally within the particular person all-around occasion, wherein she additionally received bronze.

The 21-year-old Lee carried out final. After seeing her opponents’ excessive scores, she selected to not add problem to the routines she’d carried out final week, which may have given her an opportunity at a gold or silver. After touchdown her routine, she mentioned she was thrilled.

“It feels wonderful to have it over with, truthfully. I used to be so nervous watching everybody,” Lee mentioned afterward. “I acquired to observe everybody and it put the stress on me a bit bit. However I am actually blissful that it did, as a result of I really feel like I did all the pieces that I got here to do.”

After profitable a shock gold medal within the particular person all-around on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Lee had set her concentrate on returning to the Olympics right here in Paris.

However these plans gave the impression to be derailed early final 12 months, when two severe kidney situations compelled her to retire early from her school gymnastics profession. The sickness prompted speedy weight achieve and swelling so intense that she discovered it troublesome to bend her joints or grip the uneven bars. Her medical doctors had been, at first, stumped concerning the trigger. At instances, she believed she would by no means compete once more.

The USA’s Sunisa Lee celebrates profitable the bronze medal on the finish of the ladies’s uneven bars closing Sunday. It was her third medal of the Video games and sixth Olympic medal general.

Lionel Bonaventure/AFP through Getty Pictures

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Lionel Bonaventure/AFP through Getty Pictures

“I am so, so glad that I by no means gave up, as a result of there have been so many instances the place I thought of quitting and strolling away from the game as a result of I did not assume that I might ever get so far,” she mentioned in June after qualifying for the U.S. Olympic crew.

Sunday’s bronze is Lee’s third and closing medal of the 2024 Video games after she received bronze within the particular person all-around closing and helped the U.S. win a gold within the crew occasion.

“She had all the pieces to lose coming again. There was nothing actually for her to show — aside from to herself,” her coach Jess Graba mentioned Sunday.