- Suni Lee earned three Olympic medals — a gold, silver, and bronze — at the Tokyo Olympics.
- Historically, the 19-year-old gymnast kept her precious hardware stowed away in a locked safe.
Suni Lee has three Olympic medals to her name.
But in a bid to protect her precious hardware, the reigning Olympic all-around champion nearly lost her gold, silver, and bronze.
When she was living in Los Angeles not long after the Tokyo Olympics — where she won team all-around silver and uneven bars bronze, in addition to her all-around gold — Lee kept her medals locked away in a safe. And while that all sounds well and good on paper, in Lee's case it proved to be a recipe for complete disaster.
"I forgot the code," Lee told Insider.
In a moment of terror, the 19-year-old realized that she had no way to access her medals — the embodiment of all of her hard work and accomplishments.
Though she's extremely strong thanks to years of the highest levels of gymnastics training, her 5-foot frame wasn't much of a match for the thick door of the safe. With limited options and a big move back home to her native Minnesota just one day away, Lee did what any other person would do in that position.
"I was freaking out," she said. "It was so bad."
After she calmed down a bit, Lee had the sense to call a locksmith. Fortunately, the folks who responded to her desperate pleas "knew who I was" and therefore weren't suspicious of her desire to "break the door open and get the medals out."
It all worked out. Lee got her medals back in time to take her trip halfway across the country and they're securely in her possession to this day.
But she's definitely a bit scarred by the whole experience.
"I'm scared now to put them in a safe," Lee said. "So I just kinda leave them in a secretive spot now."