Suni Lee and me—and a bowl of pho

It’s not exactly a secret that I love the Summer Olympics. I literally used my job as a journalist over the last year as an excuse to (virtually) meet and speak with elite AA+PI athletes on their way to the biggest competitions of their lives.

Like so many people around the world, I have spent the last week and a half glued to various screens—instead of working or sleeping—live streaming events, catching replays of events, humming along to John Williams’ “Bugler’s Dream” (better known as “Olympic Fanfare and Theme”) every evening at the start of NBC’s primetime coverage, and scrolling through social media for the latest interviews, highlights, memes, and armchair commentary.

Every four years, my entire personality becomes the Olympics. Well, I say “Olympics,” but what I really mean is Olympic artistic gymnastics.

Brown Asian gymnasts, we’re here too!

Growing up as a Cambodian American gymnast in the 1990s, I didn’t have many elite gymnast role models who looked like me. “My” Olympic team was the Magnificent Seven from 1996, which included Chinese American Amy Chow, who was amazing in her own right. But seeing Lee, who is Hmong American and a fellow Southeast Asian, make it to the top of the sport has been meaningful beyond words. Asian American representation in the media and sports has improved immensely in recent years, but Southeast Asian representation is still lacking. So anytime one of us makes it big, the spotlight just hits differently and feels that much brighter on our brown skin.

Asian American representation in the media and sports has improved immensely in recent years, but Southeast Asian representation is still lacking. So anytime one of us makes it big, the spotlight just hits differently and feels that much brighter on our brown skin.

If you would’ve told 10-year-old Samantha that one of the top gymnasts at the Olympics would not only be Asian American, but specifically Southeast Asian American, and even enjoyed some of the same food as me, I wouldn’t have believed you. I get teary eyed writing this and just thinking about how much my younger self would have idolized Lee. Hell, after all she’s been through—from competing at a national championship two days after her father fell off a ladder and was left paralyzed and experiencing imposter syndrome following her all-around win at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, to an isolating college experience and battling two kidney diseases—I idolize her now.

And it’s not just Lee.

A much more colorful sport

I’m absolutely living for how much more diverse the sport has become. Gymnastics has historically been a predominantly white sport. Chow and Dominique Dawes (“my” gymnast, as like her, I had a penchant for tumbling) were the only gymnasts of color from that gold medal-winning squad from 1996. Compare that to this year’s team, where it’s the opposite, with only two white gymnasts and five gymnasts of color (including the two traveling alternates).

Not only are elite American gymnasts representing more races and ethnicities, we’re seeing that same shift in the sport reflected internationally. There are also more countries entering the field—and making history—than we’ve ever seen.

At these games alone, in artistic gymnastics, we’ve seen the first team medal for Brazil, the first Italian team medal in almost a century and first individual gold medal for the country, the first all-women-of-color podium in the all-around, the first medal (and gold, at that!) for Algeria and the entire continent of Africa, and the first all-Black podium (for floor). And when you add in the men’s side, with first-time medals for Philippines, Ireland, Kazakhstan, and Colombia, it’s safe to say artistic gymnastics is becoming a bit more colorful.