The beef between former Team USA gymnasts is only deepening.
After Simone Biles shaded former teammate MyKayla Skinner in her gold medal celebration Instagram post on Wednesday, current U.S. gymnast Sunisa Lee seemed to double down.
“Put a finger down if Simone Biles just ended you,” wrote the 21-year-old Lee, adding a hand emoji in a comment that appears to have been deleted.
Part 1: The gymnastics community cannot let these comments to be swept under the rug. I will be as respectful as possible to @mykaylaskinner but instead of engaging in meaningful conversation she blocks anyone who holds her accountable for her words. pic.twitter.com/Y69pwCxnUG
— Riley (@gymguyri) July 3, 2024
The original spat started when Skinner, who won a silver medal with Team USA in Tokyo, suggested that this year’s gymnastics roster lacked the necessary creed.
“Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t like what it used to be,” Skinner said in a video that has since been removed from YouTube as the 2024 roster was announced. “The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”
Biles clapped back after the U.S. won gold in the team gymnastics final, writing in her Instagram caption: “Lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions,” in an apparent dig at Skinner.
The plot further thickened Wednesday after Biles suggested that Skinner had blocked her on at least one social media platform.
However, weeks before the Summer Games got underway, Skinner posted a statement on social media, apologizing for her previous comments.
“I want to formally apologize to Team USA and to our gymnastic community for my comments during my recent YouTube episodes of the gymnastics Olympic trials,” Skinner wrote in a July 6 Instagram post. “It was not my intention to offend or disrespect any of the athletes or to take away from their hard work.”
Skinner, who retired following the Tokyo Games in 2021, was not part of this year’s five-woman team that reclaimed the throne as all-around team champions with Biles, Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera leading the way.
As part of the gilded performance that saw Team USA post a 171.296 total score, Lee ranked first in Rotation 3 with a 14.600 score on the balance beam, scored a second-place 14.566 on uneven bars in Rotation 2 and also added a 13.533 on floor exercise in Rotation 4.
Lee wasn’t the only prominent American gymnast to publicly back Biles while undermining Skinner, as former gold medalist McKayla Maroney also commented on Biles’ post.
