It was nearing 11 p.m., the end of a long, arduous day that brought to an end the long, arduous Olympic trials that, for Sunisa Lee, served as the culmination of a long and impossibly arduous journey back to herself.
Still shaking her head in disbelief and near teary-eyed that a double-barrel diagnosis of dueling kidney diseases had not ended her return to the Olympic Games, Lee sat at a dais wearing her new fit — the official white warmups for the 2024 women’s gymnastics Olympic team. In front of her sat an assemblage of standing-room-only media. Advertisement Midway through her news conference, Lee was asked about the people who had helped her find her way back to competition.
“I would say my doctor, Dr. Faustin,” Lee began, glancing to her left, toward Dr. Marcia Faustin, the co-head team physician for USA Gymnastics, seated near the front of the room.
Faustin attempted to make herself invisible by pretzeling into a fetal position, or at least as near as one can get to the fetal position in a folding chair. She covered her face with her forearms and wound her long legs up toward her chin, as if they could act as armor and deflect the curiosity as every person in the room turned their attention in her direction. “The joke on the team is I’m never embarrassed.
Like ever,” Faustin said via video call three weeks later. “They’re always asking me, ‘Do you ever get embarrassed?’ Well, they found it.” Decidedly committed to staying behind the scenes, Faust.