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Suni Lee reveals struggle with anxiety attacks, 'impostor syndrome' after Olympics

Liz Roscher
Staff writer
·3 min read
4

Suni Lee, the Olympic gymnast who won gold in the women's all-around in Tokyo last year, isn't immune to anxiety and feeling like she's not good enough. Lee recently opened up to ESPN about these issues, revealing that they've even led her to consider skipping competitions.

"I feel like after the Olympics, there's just been so much doubt in like, 'Oh, she shouldn't have won Olympics, blah, blah, blah,' and it really hits my soul," Lee told ESPN.

Simone Biles, Lee's Team USA teammate, went to the Tokyo Olympics and was expected by pretty much everyone on Earth to win gold in every event she entered. However, issues with her mental health led her to pull out of the all-around and several other events. Lee competed in the all-around and won gold.

Biles pulling out is something that sticks with Lee. She may have won gold on the biggest stage in the world, but she feels she needs to prove she earned that medal "because I think I just put in my head that I didn't deserve to win."

Lee, 19, has no reason to doubt her abilities. As a freshman at Auburn, she's earned perfect 10s on two of her routines. But that's how anxiety and impostor syndrome work — no matter what you've accomplished, you believe you're not actually good enough.

"Like impostor syndrome," she told ESPN. "That's exactly what I have. And it's very hard. It was very hard for me to motivate myself the first couple of weeks here because it was like I didn't want to do gymnastics, I hated it."

Auburn gymnast Sunisa Lee, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics all-around champion, performs on the balance beam during an NCAA gymnastics meet against LSU on Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022, in Baton Rouge, La. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Gymnast Suni Lee has dealt with anxiety and impostor syndrome since winning gold at the Tokyo Olympics. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

Pressure to perform

The pressure Lee feels isn't just coming from her own brain. Being a celebrity athlete comes with pressure and attention from fans, which was extremely hard for her to get used to.

"I would have anxiety attacks at the meets," Lee said to ESPN. "Like the first couple of the meets of this season, I was a wreck because it was like constant screaming my name and like, 'Suni, can you take a picture?' or 'Can you sign an autograph?' while I'm trying to concentrate. [...]

"When everybody expects you to be good for Auburn, it's really hard for me just mentally, because I already put so much pressure on myself that when I have that extra pressure stress added on to it, I just kind of break," she said.

Lee told ESPN that she's doing better now, especially since she started writing in a journal. She even posted a page from her journal on social media recently.

The tweet sharing her "meet day goals" came just a few hours after she scored her first perfect 10 for Auburn.

But for Lee, it's not just about showing the world her successes. It's about showing herself as a real person, warts and all.

"I think it's important because a lot of the times people forget that we're human," Lee said. "I think people just look at me as a famous person; they don't actually look at me as a person and to kind of see that we can make mistakes, too."