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Simone Biles is reiterating criticism leveled at gymnasts. The 27-year-old appeared to address her former teammate MyKayla Skinner's derogatory comments regarding how gymnasts nowadays "don't work as hard" as they used to after winning the 2024 Olympics. Posting pictures of herself and her colleagues from the Paris Summer Games, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera, celebrating winning the gold medal in the women's gymnastics team final, Simone posted on Instagram on July 30. She added, "lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions."
The comment was made in response to the Team USA gymnastics trials, a video that has since been removed from YouTube. MyKayla, who competed alongside Simone at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, caused controversy a few weeks prior when she said, "Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just aren't like what they used to be."
She said, "A lot of girls don't work as hard" at the time. "The girls just don't have the work ethic."
MyKayla, 27, made a contentious video in which she implied that the perceived lack of effort was partly due to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a non-profit organization established to help put an end to abuse in sports.
"Like, coaches can't get on athletes, and they have to be really careful what they say," she stated. "which, in some ways, is really good, but at the same time, to get to where you need to be in gymnastics, you do have to be, I feel like, a little aggressive and a little intense."
After receiving a lot of negative feedback online, MyKayla later apologized, saying that her remarks had been "misinterpreted or misunderstood."
The comment was made in response to the Team USA gymnastics trials, a video that has since been removed from YouTube. MyKayla, who competed alongside Simone at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, caused controversy a few weeks prior when she said, "Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just aren't like what they used to be."
She said, "A lot of girls don't work as hard" at the time. "The girls just don't have the work ethic."
MyKayla, 27, made a contentious video in which she implied that the perceived lack of effort was partly due to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a non-profit organization established to help put an end to abuse in sports.
"Like, coaches can't get on athletes, and they have to be really careful what they say," she stated. "which, in some ways, is really good, but at the same time, to get to where you need to be in gymnastics, you do have to be, I feel like, a little aggressive and a little intense."
After receiving a lot of negative feedback online, MyKayla later apologized, saying that her remarks had been "misinterpreted or misunderstood."
