Africa’s first gymnastics medal is won by Kaylia Nemour, while Suni Lee takes home the bronze in uneven bars

Africa's first gymnastics medal is won by Kaylia Nemour, while Suni Lee takes home the bronze in uneven bars
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As the lone American competitor in Sunday’s uneven bars final, Suni Lee kept things tight, winning bronze and effectively defending her podium finish from Tokyo.

With her gold, Kaylia Nemour of Algeria achieved her long-awaited dream. China’s Qiu Qiyuan won the silver.

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Lee was able to execute the most calculated routine because she had the advantage of going last. Lee’s slightly more conservative technique netted him a 14.800.

With Simone Biles in the mix, she never would have imagined winning the gold medal in the Olympics for all-around performance, but a bar medal was always in the cards.

She has been open about her desire for Parisian hardware in preparation for her return to the Olympic Games.

For her Olympic comeback, Lee had very clear objectives in mind: a gold medal for the team, a podium place in the all-around competition, a medal on the bars, and a gold medal on the balancing beam. Paris has proceeded according to plan thus far. Only the beam is now in jeopardy. Lee won her second all-around medal on Thursday, along with a bronze and a gold in the team event on Tuesday, to bolster her impressive Paris total. On Sunday, she became a six-time Olympic medallist.

“We all felt like we had something to prove or redeem ourselves before this Olympics,” Lee remarked. “Beam and bar finals are definitely the biggest one for me. I’m a little uneasy.

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Lee was fighting a severe kidney disease a year ago, and her illness prevented her from even being able to attach her grips to stage her hallmark event.”Despite everything I had to go through, getting to this point has been incredible,” Lee remarked. “I didn’t even think I would podium here.”

Newly crowned bars champion Nemour is representing Algeria in Paris, despite having been born and raised in France. Her gold medal marks the first gymnastics Olympic medal for the nation and the first medal for an African country.

Last year, following a protracted legal fight with the French Gymnastics Federation that threatened to jeopardize her aspirations of attending Paris, she changed her nationality through her paternal Algerian heritage. Arguments about where the uneven bars prodigy would train and claims that Nemour’s coach was overworking the 17-year-old were at the center of the dispute.

This week, the French team will undoubtedly be mourning their damaged relationship with Nemour. On Sunday, she achieved the highest bar score of the entire Olympic Games with a 15.700.

Following a dismal performance in Sunday’s qualifying round, the French team was unable to advance to either the team final or any individual finals in their home Olympics. Had they possessed Nemour’s scores, they would have easily advanced to the team championship. Nina Derwael of Belgium, the gold medallist in uneven bars from Tokyo, came in fourth and decided not to run for the title again. After dislocating her shoulder, she barely made it to Paris and qualified for the Games in her weakest event, beam.

On Monday, the last day of gymnastics in Paris, Simone Biles and Lee will compete for a beam medal.

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