
Congratulations to America’s new Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, Sunisa Lee. James Freeman tells her story in The Wall Street Journal:
Communism lost again this week as a tough and graceful American child of refugees from Marxist horror climbed to the top of the gymnastics world. Decades after her parents escaped Laos and found a home in the United States, the indefatigable Sunisa Lee is the new Olympic women’s all-around champion.
The 18-year-old Minnesotan who grew up flipping off a homemade beam and swinging on the metal bars of a family clothesline—and more recently overcame a broken foot and family tragedy—bested a talented field to take gold in Tokyo on Thursday.
Matt Bonesteel in the Washington Post notes Ms. Lee’s unique talents:
“As soon as she came to the gym it was pretty evident she was special,” Jeff Graba, who co-founded the Midwest Training Center in Minnesota where Lee learned the ropes and is now the head coach at Auburn University, told Yahoo. “In our sport, you can tell. Strength to weight ratio. Flexibility. She had the whole package.”
Lee, who will attend Auburn and compete there in the fall, is the first American of Hmong descent to compete in the Olympics. Both of her parents were born in Laos and emigrated to the United States when they were young.
Dane Mizutani of the St. Paul Pioneer Press recently reported:
With every tantalizing twirl on the uneven bars, every logic-defying leap on the balance beam, every fearless flip on the floor, St. Paul gymnast Sunisa Lee is inspiring more people than maybe she even realizes…
“She’s the realization of the dream our ancestors had,” Hmong activist Tou Ger Xiong said. “When they hopped on that plane, and didn’t speak a lick of English, and didn’t know how the heck they were going to make it work, this is the type of opportunity they were envisioning down the road. Everything our ancestors sacrificed to come here was done to give the next generations a better life. She’s living proof of that.”
“This routine is just off the charts fantastic!”
Suni Lee is UNREAL on the uneven bars.#TokyoOlympics x @sunisalee_ pic.twitter.com/MwCRP13rz8
— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) July 28, 2021
Got us beamin’.@sunisalee_ x #TokyoOlympicspic.twitter.com/JSoX2kkaZr
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) July 28, 2021
You’re so golden ✨@sunisalee_ Tokyo 2020 AA Champion
pic.twitter.com/haKHtYJCpj— nat (@uclavm) July 29, 2021