Fans and dignitaries celebrate Olympian Suni Lee’s return home to Twin Cities
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A crowd of around 70 people greeted Olympic gold medalist and St. Paul gymnast Suni Lee Sunday as she returned from the Paris Olympics.
Lee won a bronze in the all-around and uneven bars in Paris and a shared gold with fellow U.S. women’s gymnastics teammates in the artistic gymnastics competition.
Jenny Yang and her 12 year-old daughter Isabel were among the fans gathered at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport to celebrate Lee and ask for autographs.
"We definitely became more excited just seeing someone who looks like us being in the Olympics,” said Yang. “And having someone who’s from the Hmong community be in the Olympics especially, and then from Minnesota, too.”
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Yang said they became fans of gymnastics after Lee made her Olympic debut four years ago in Tokyo.
Lee’s community at Midwest Gymnastics in Little Canada also showed up in full force to support her. Fourteen-year-old Bianca Graba said she’s known Lee since she started gymnastics at age two and looks up to her.
“I’m very proud of her, she said. “I don’t know if I’ll try for the Olympics, but I’m very proud of her.”
Lee’s former coach, Punnarith Koy, was also there to see Lee return home. Since the last Olympics, Koy said Lee has reinvigorated local gymnastics.
“Ever since Tokyo, there’s always been talk about the Suni Lee Effect, and we have definitely seen that firsthand in our gym in terms of enrollment and also diversity of athletes,” he said.
Koy added that Lee’s success has likely helped many gyms attract gymnasts elsewhere, too.
Lee’s other well wishers at the airport included U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter.
