Opinion | EdgeofSports: Suni Lee and her teammate Simone Biles were true to themselves when it mattered most. That's something to celebrate.
This has been a unique Olympic gymnastics finals. Indeed, it is impossible to celebrate Lee’s victory without acknowledging how the door was opened following Biles’ shocking withdrawal from competition. There will be a venal temptation — and in some corners a zeal — to bury Biles by comparing her to Lee, to say one buckled in the face of pressure while another rose to the occasion.
We should also be prepared to see among those embracing Lee the very people who reject immigrants and their struggles. Far from sincere, such performative celebration may well be used as a cudgel to attack Biles, whose genius and self-advocacy rankles racists like nothing we’ve seen since a certain quarterback took a knee during the national anthem.
The hope is that we move away from the bigoted carnival profiteers who bray about courage while hiding from masks, who will embrace Lee only insofar as she can be used to demonize others. Both Lee and Biles should be lionized for their ability to look reality in the face under the brightest possible lights and be true to their health, their team and the moment.
Rather than divide them, here’s hoping they are bound for eternity: two young women who have been asked to do the near-impossible
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