Suni Lee Shares Affirmation She Told Herself Before Final Routine ...

The battle for the gold, silver and bronze medals in the women's all-around finals at the 2024 Olympics came down to the floor routine.

Simone Biles bested the competition, beating out Brazil's Rebeca Andrade for the gold, and 2020 all-around gold medalist Suni Lee fought to end up on the podium on Aug. 1.

Lee, 21, said on TODAY Aug. 2 that she was "in shock" when she learned her floor routine score would give her the bronze medal.

"I didn't think that I was going to be able to podium," Lee recalled. "So like coming in my floor routine, I literally told myself like, you know, we're just going to end it off the right way and I'm just going to do everything that I can to just finish it off, because being here is an accomplishment itself."

Lee delivered dazzling performances on the vault, balance beam, uneven bars and floor, in a high-stakes competition between the world's best gymnasts — after going through a health battle last year that left her thinking she may not be able to compete again.

Going into her floor routine, her final rotation, Lee was tied for fourth and her competitors were fractions of a point away from each other. Before getting on the floor, Lee was seen reciting affirmations and mantras.

"Mind over matter," NBC Olympics captioned a video of Lee reciting words to herself ahead of doing her floor routine.

After giving her final salute, the judges sent in a score of 13.666, meaning Lee would make it on the podium.

"I honestly started getting a little bit emotional. I don't know if you can tell, but I like almost started tearing up," Lee told TODAY's Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb of what she was thinking after she finished her routine. "But I was just like, so happy."

"I came off and my coach was like, 'I told you.' He was like, 'I knew you could do it.' And he's like, 'I'm just so proud of you,' because he's like, 'I will always bet on you,'" Lee continued. "It means so much."

Lee's teammate Biles won the all-around competition with a combined score of 59.131, with Andrade at 57.932, and Lee with 56.465. Lee shared how Biles was doing after a spectacular night.

"I think she's feeling amazing. I mean, it's kind of surreal, I guess coming from the last Olympics and dealing with everything that she's had to — she's been such a role model and inspiration," Lee said. "I told her right when she got off like, 'You did it.'"

Lee was joined by her teammate Jordan Chiles on TODAY, who helped lead Team USA to the gold medal in the women's team finals, along with Biles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera.

While the team and all-around finals have concluded, the finals for individual apparatus events start on Aug. 3 and end on Aug. 5.

Chiles and Biles qualified for the floor routine finals, the final event of the women's gymnastics competition. Chiles said on TODAY she has already been talking about it with her teammates.

"I'm kind of nervous, I'm not going to lie," she said. "I'm literally the last person to go, out of the whole entire Olympics. So I'm really excited though. This is definitely a dream come true ... so I'm just really excited. And hopefully I can give the same energy I give to everybody else to myself!"

Chiles added it can be hard to figure out where her family is inside of Bercy Arena, where many of the Olympic gymnastic events take place, but she managed to find them after her balance beam routine during team finals.

"I did my beam dismount and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, OK, I know where they're at now,'" she said. "But I feel like since there's so many people, which we love, and the atmosphere there, the environment is so crazy, that I feel like we just look around and see if we can find them but if not, we know that they're there, for sure."

Lee added: "I wait for the quiet moments because that's when my family's screaming. I'll look, and I'll see exactly where they are."

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Anna Kaplan

Anna Kaplan is a news and trending reporter for TODAY.com.