McKayla Maroney responds to Simone Biles’ brutal jibe at MyKayla Skinner following Team USA’s gold medal win at the Paris 2024 Olympics
The USA Gymnastics royal family is taking sides in the feud between Simone Biles and MyKayla Skinner.
Biles, along with Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey, dominated the field of artistic gymnastics team finals at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday, winning by almost five and a half points over Italy.
Biles posted a photo of the team on her Instagram after the game with the cheeky caption – “lack of talent, lazy, Olympic champions” – in response to a comment Skinner had made online ahead of the Paris Games.
In a since-deleted YouTube video, Skinner criticized the team of Biles, Chiles, Lee, Carey and Hezly Rivera for not having the proper “work ethic.”
Former Team USA star and 2012 gold medalist McKayla Maroney has also spoken out and is firmly on Biles’ side.
Former Team USA star McKayla Maroney has spoken out and she’s firmly in Biles’ camp
Simone Biles captioned her celebratory post with a veiled photo of a former Team USA member
Maroney joked that she should apologize just because she had the same first name as Skinner
“It doesn’t get more iconic than this,” Maroney wrote on Instagram in response to Biles’ post. “She hung out and found out.”
Maroney then joked that he would have the same nickname as Skinner.
“I feel like I need to apologize to save my first name,” she wrote.
Skinner, who won silver in the vault event in Tokyo in 2020, has come under fire for comments she made about her former teammates.
“Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and depth aren’t what they used to be,” the 27-year-old said on YouTube.
“The girls just don’t have the right work ethic,” Skinner continued, before referring to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a nonprofit organization founded to reduce sexual and emotional abuse of athletes in U.S. Olympic sports.
“And it’s also difficult because of SafeSport. Coaches can’t harass athletes and they have to be very careful about what they say,” Skinner said.
“Which is really good in some ways. But at the same time, to get where you need to be in gymnastics, you have to be a little bit aggressive and a little bit intense.”
From left to right, Suni Lee, Simone Biles and Hezly Rivera celebrate winning the gold medal
MyKayla Skinner, a member of the 2020 Olympic team, criticized the work ethic of the 2024 team
Immediately afterward, Biles responded sharply to Skinner, writing in Threads that “not everyone needs a microphone and a platform.”
Biles and several other gymnasts, including Chiles, Lee and Carey, all blocked Skinner on social media following her comments.
Skinner would later apologize.
“I want to apologize to Team USA and our gymnastics community for my comments during my recent YouTube episodes of the Olympic Gymnastics Trials. It was not my intention to insult or disrespect any athletes or to undermine their hard work,” Skinner’s July 6 apology read.
She continued: ‘When I thought about it, I compared the ‘Marta [Karolyi] era’ to the present era.
“I am coming to terms with the fact that I have not yet fully dealt with the emotional and verbal abuse I endured under Marta that may have led to my hurtful comments. I take full responsibility for what I said and sincerely apologize.”
Skinner concluded her apology by wishing the gymnasts good luck in Paris and saying she would “be cheering you all on!”
Biles and Skinner both represented Team USA at various competitions, including the 2020 Olympic Games.
They won Olympic medals in Tokyo despite Biles withdrawing from several events due to a case of “twisties” – a mental block in which a gymnast loses control of his body during an aerial spin.
But now she has found her redemption: she won her second gold medal at the Olympic Games with her team and her fifth gold medal in total.
Looking back on her performance, Biles told DailyMail.com that the pressure in Paris was different than in the past, but that her experience helped her get through it.
‘In 2016, our goal was to win gold and everyone said that was our goal, so whenever we went out on the field, we did our job and won gold.
Skinner, who won a silver medal on vault in Tokyo in 2020 after replacing Biles, recently criticized the gymnastics squad for the 2024 Olympics for lacking the required “work ethic”
Biles blocked Skinner after her criticism, despite the gymnast apologizing
“We were a bit young and naive, so it didn’t really catch on like it does now. Now that I’m a lot older and we have so much more experience, we’re really having fun here and enjoying what we do.
“So I think it’s just different and that’s not to say I wasn’t shocked that we won because it was still super surprising, my first gold medal ever. It was so exciting. But I think the pressure was so high that we wanted to win gold, so we just did what we had to do.
“Even tonight we just did what we had to do, but it just felt a little different. It was super exciting, we had fun out there and we just did our gymnastics.
Simone added: ‘We’re super excited. We feel honored to represent the US any time we’re on a world stage, but to get that gold and that goal was just an amazing feeling.
‘I think we all had something to prove with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and we did that tonight.
“It means the world. That was our goal when we started this, even though we didn’t share it with everybody because it was just something personal that we were working on. But I think for everybody, it’s what we came here for. And we’re super excited to come home with that gold medal.”