Turns out quiet makes Suni Lee feel off balance. The Team USA gymnast—who has won two bronze medals and one gold medal at the 2024 Olympics —shared what caused her and fellow teammate Simone Biles to fall off the balance beam during their Aug. 5 competition in Paris.
"It was really silent when you get up there," Suni told reporters after wards . "I don't like that just because it gives me too much time to think and I can hear everything." The mix of stress and quiet caused issues for the gymnasts, including Romania's Sabrina Voinea , who also fell.
"I like the cheering," the 21-year-old continued. "I don't like the silence. I don't like it.
I thrive off the crowd, so having the crowd's energy especially after you finish a routine is really helpful." Suni joked that she could "literally hear myself breathing," and was more stressed about the fact that "everybody could hear me breathing when I was up there." Simone doubled down on how the quiet impacted her.
"Beam final is always the most stressful," she told reporters via NBC News . "But usually, we have like music or background noise, whatever that may be." According to the 27-year-old, the gymnasts "do better in environments when there's noise going on because it feels most like practice.
" "It was really weird and awkward," she continued, "and we've asked several times if we could have some music or some background noise. So I am not really sure what happened there, but yeah, not our favorite. None of us liked it.
Yeah, .