Olympic gold medallist 'pepper-sprayed' in sickening attack

US Olympic champion Suni Lee claimed she was the target of a racially motivated pepper-spray attack in Los Angeles.

Lee made history at the Tokyo Olympics after becoming the first US Olympic athlete from the Hmong ethnic group.

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But, in a recent interview with Pop Sugar, Lee said she was the target of a vile racial attack.

The Olympian was waiting for an Uber with her friends, all of Asian descent, when a car pulled up and told them to "go back to where they came from".

Following the racial taunt, Lee was sprayed in the arm with pepper spray before the car took off.

"I was so mad, but there was nothing I could do or control because they skirted off," she told Pop Sugar.

"I didn't do anything to them, and having the reputation, it's so hard because I didn't want to do anything that could get me into trouble.

"I just let it happen."

Lee won the gold medal in the all-around gymnastics competition, one of the events Simone Biles withdrew from.

She became the fifth US gymnast in a row to win gold in the the all-around competition.

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The incident comes amid a reported rise of attacks on Asian Americans.

Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit group that tracks hate or discrimination incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, recorded a spike in incidents over the last 12 months.

Since March 2020 to February 2021, there has been 3,800 incidents, jumping from 2,600 the year before.

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