TikTok users are sharing videos of their competition fails as a new Olympic meme, and now Olympic gymnast Sunitha “Suni” Lee has joined in, poking fun at her own fall during Monday’s women’s balance beam final.
Many athletes have been posting videos of their sporting mishaps to TikTok, complete with accompanying text explaining their disappointment in not making the 2024 Olympic team, with an instrumental remix of “The Star-Spangled Banner” playing over the video, providing a fitting and grandiose celebration of their earnest yet awkward efforts.
So why does everyone keep falling off the balance beam at the Olympics? That’s what the internet wants to know.
Athletes from all sports have joined in the meme, from divers hitting the board, hurdlers tripping over multiple hurdles in a row, gymnasts swinging on the uneven bars, and preparing for a backflip much longer than expected. Even celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay got in on the meme, sharing a video of himself taking a shot on a basketball court but missing the mark.
But even when you make the Olympic team, things don’t always go according to plan, even when you give it your all. Li, a six-time Olympic medalist, demonstrated that when she unexpectedly fell off the balance beam in Monday’s final, finishing in a tie for fifth place with teammate Simone Biles. Italian gymnasts Alice D’Amato and Manila Esposito won gold and bronze medals, respectively, while Chinese gymnast Yaqing Zhou took silver.
Despite the disappointment, Li chose to make the best of the situation, seizing the opportunity to join the Olympic TikTok meme scene by sharing a video of herself falling on the balance beam just a day after the final.
“Unfortunately I was selected for the Olympics,” Lee wrote in a video posted to TikTok on Tuesday.
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She accented the joke with a heart emoji, and added a loud crying face emoji and two smiling face emojis with tears in their eyes in the video’s description.
Why was the Olympic women’s balance beam final so awkward?
Li and Biles were among four skaters who fell from the balance beam in Monday’s women’s final — a significant number considering only eight skaters competed, all of them world-class athletes — and the unusual falls quickly sparked online speculation and conspiracy theories about the state of the Olympic equipment.
This is not the first time equipment problems have marred gymnasts’ performances at the Olympics: In one infamous incident, the women’s vault at the 2000 Sydney Olympics was mistakenly set 5 centimeters (2 inches) too low, causing multiple gymnasts to fall before the error was discovered and corrected.
Such speculation aside, there have been no reports of any actual issues with the condition of the balance beam at this year’s Paris Olympics, but some athletes said they felt uneasy about the lack of background music or noise during the finals.
Gymnasts are typically accustomed to training alongside others in noisy gyms and performing impressive flips amid a fair amount of noise, yet the Paris Olympics oddly opted to do away with background music in the individual finals, an oppressive silence compounded by spectators who hushed other spectators during the women’s balance beam final, and even the gymnasts themselves, as they cheered on their teammates.
“Honestly, I perform better with the noise because it makes me feel like I’m practicing,” Biles said after the competition, describing the final as “weird and awkward.”
“[The silence]increases stress because it makes you feel like you’re the only one there,” Lee agreed. “So you feel pressured.”
Though she missed out on the podium on the balance beam, Lee finished with three shiny new medals for the 2024 Olympics: a gold in the team event and two bronze medals in the women’s individual all-around and uneven bars. There’s no medal for winning a TikTok meme, but it’s safe to say Lee totally dominated this event as well.
