Suni Lee - AU gymnast, makes US Olympics team

Very excited to root her on next month. Also she will actually be relevant in the ongoing NIL evolution for college sports unlike basically every other woman athlete

Showing my complete lack of gymnastics knowledge, AU has signed a world class gymnast, how does that translate to competing against SEC level competition next season? Is there a huge gap between gymnasts of her class and elite NCAA competitors?

Very cool!

It seems like most of our T&F Olympians represent other countries.

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She beat Simone’s score for the day yesterday.

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To give an idea how dominant Simone is, if you fall it is a deduction of 1 whole point. Despite falling off the balance beam, Simone still won the all around by 3 points.


Would suck to be an Olympic level gymnast right now. It is the equivalent to showing up to a HS basketball game and your opponent has Lebron James

Jeff Graba was interviewed on tv last night and mentioned that her father was a paraplegic. Link to full article

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According to reports, Suni's father fell off of a ladder while helping a friend trim a tree on Aug. 4, 2019, just one day before the then-Olympic hopeful left for the national championships.

The fall resulted in John's spinal cord being injured, paralyzing him from the chest down. Suni decided to compete and finished in second place behind Simone, as her father watched proudly from his hospital bed.

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It will be interesting to see how it translates next year but

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It is very interesting because of how college gymnastics scores routines.

For those unfamiliar, each routine has a "starting value" based on routine difficulty. Basic skills requirements starts at 9.5. Gymnasts can earn an additional 0.5 "bonus" points to max 10 difficulty from more advanced routines, skills or added difficulty (connecting skills or harder variations)

The the average of 2 judges who grade the routine by assessing deductions (falls, landing hops, wobbles etc) and subtracting from start value getsyour final score out of 10

So at the high college level like AU, every girl should have a start value of 10 to be a top team. So where Sunni helps is in execution. A 10 start value routine for Sunni / other elite classification gymnasts are considered relatively easy and basic.

I'd compare it to having a free throw competition with Steph Curry on your team. He won't make every one but it is an easy shot for him.

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she should pull our team scores up.

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So college gymnastics has 6 routines per event and takes the top 5 scores from the team. That means if a girl falls off beam or doesn't land a vault, you can throw out her scorE.

Typically winning meets has more to do with getting 5 solid scores at each event than amazing scores. Alabama lost a national championship in BHam a couple years ago because they had 2-3 girls fall off beam and had to use their scores for example.


So where someone like Sunni probably helps most is that she doesn't ever fall really and her off day is still going to be one of the best days for most college gymnasts.That means you only have to worry about the other 5 girls

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She's killing it. Biles is out and she's incredible in her absence.

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Interesting interview with Biles.

She didn't drop out of the team competition bc of injury but bc she mentally wasn't all there? What's with that? She said she wasn't going to help her team so she thought they would step up without her.

The greatest gymnast didn't have it mentally today?

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Interesting interview with Biles.

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you got a link?

I think the pressure is getting to her. She knows this is her last Olympics. She has not looked sharp. She has been hearing how she is the GOAT from every angle. She seems to be worried more about the individual events and how she will go out.

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She dropped out of the Olympics for that? Maybe she needs to get back into the kitchen then.

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Damn son. I agree that this all seems weird thy she all the sudden could feel this pressure, but they have been blowing her up as the best Olympian of all time like nothing I’ve seen. She’s clearly feeling something she’s never felt before, so I’d just give her the benefit of the doubt that it’s a real struggle right now.