After Suni Lee won the all-around gold at the Tokyo Olympics, her social media following blew up. The Associated Press reported that she added 950,000 followers on Instagram — a 390 percent increase. And she saw similar increases on TikTok and Twitter.
That kind of limelight can be daunting. The 18-year-old gymnast was the favorite to win gold heading into Sunday’s uneven-bars final, but didn’t complete her routine with perfection. In the end, she took away bronze, with Belgium’s Nina Derwael and the Russian Olympic Committee’s Anastasiia Iliankova winning gold and silver, respectively.
Uneven-bars is a talent that Lee is particularly proud of — something she cherishes, she told the AP. “So when I mess it up, it really sucks.”
And Lee partially blames social media for winning bronze instead of gold, telling People that she “got distracted and lost focus a little bit when I won the gold medal.” Now, she plans to “stay off social media for a little bit.”
“I’ll probably cool down a little bit and just focus on what I need to do especially because we’re coming to the end,” she said. “I want to just do the best I can and end it off good.”
Lee told People on August 1 that she plans to delete Twitter because “it’s just so easy to see everything.” That said, Lee has been tweeting since her bronze win. She added that she might not delete Instagram because she “can’t really see what people say,” and she’ll definitely keep TikTok.
“TikTok is my getaway app, it’s just so fun,” Lee told People, who has already posted videos following her bronze medal win.
On Tuesday, Lee competed on beam, finishing in fifth place, ESPN reported, behind Simone Biles who won bronze. It was Biles’s first event back since she withdrew from the team all-around final last week to prioritize her mental health.
