“I caught the first Yeager I tried… my shoulders are doneeee for after this.” said Suni Lee after she came back to gymnastics 200 days later. Her hands would reach the bar out of instinct; body swinging, but the very move that has once given fame to the olympian is drifting off. And now, as her dream to have to move reaches an unfulfilled end, the desire to be with the sport takes a hit inside the gymnast.

Lee had told the Olympics before the 2024 Winter Cup while talking about her biggest trick, full-twisting Jaeger that he would love it to be named after her. That dream is going to be a dream now. On March 20, 2025, a video went viral from the 2025 Antalya World Cup Artistic Gymnastics qualification round where Chinese gymnast Yang Fanyuwei was seen executing a full-twisting Jaeger on the uneven bars. Now since this was done at a major international competition, the skill is named after her. and Lee has hinted at retirement.

A tweet, posted on March 20, 2025, talked about how Yang Fanyuwei has completed the full-twisting Jaeger on the uneven bars. The very same skill that Suni Lee brought to the 2024 Winter Cup, and the fans hoped that it would be named ‘The Lee.’ That didn’t happen, and the fan replied to the tweet with, “does this kill sunis chances of coming back 🥲🥲.” Suni took notice of the tweet and replied with just one word, “yes.”

Fans have already been missing Suni Lee when she took an early retirement from collegiate gymnastics in 2023 due to her kidney issues. In November 2022, she announced that the 2022–2023 season would be her final season competing for Auburn University to focus on returning to elite gymnastics to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics. However, in March 2023, Lee was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease, leading her to end her collegiate season early.

She did participate in the Paris Olympics winning bronze medals in both the all-around and uneven bars finals, becoming the first American woman to win two medals in the uneven bars at consecutive Olympics and contributed to the U.S. women’s gymnastics team’s gold medal. Even though she is retiring or not; the scar of this failed dream is going to be there for a while.

Suni Lee’s dream failed twice

To start with, a full-twisting Jaeger is not an easy move; as a matter of fact, it is one of the most challenging moves known in the sport; it is a complex move where the gymnast swings backward with reversed hands and then performs a front somersault in a layout with a full twist. Lee was first seen doing it in her training which she later posted on her Instagram an it was her dream to have it named after her.

This was one of her goals during the 2024 Winter Cup, “I’m just excited because I think it’ll be pretty cool having the skill being named,” Lee had said in an interview ahead of the competition but it didn’t go so well. The main reason she was in the Winter Cup was to qualify for the Baku World Cup and get the name, so she tried twice, once even attempting the jager, but both times the Tokyo Olympian failed and fell off the uneven bars. She wanted to “redeem myself so bad, so bad!” because she was good at it she “hit it every single time [in practice].”

The redemption never came, but it does not mean she didn’t try. In the 2024 Paris Olympics US trials, Lee saw another shot at getting the jager to be named, ‘the lee‘ and so she practiced and performed the move, but things didn’t go as planned. The Olympics reporter talked of the performance of the olympian over his Twitter tellin that she missed the Jaeger after successfully completing the opening part of her routine. Maybe she could have tried it again in LA, but that door is closed now and maybe she’s retiring. What else can the yes mean?