Athletes find motivation from all kinds of places. For Simone Biles, at least some of the bulletin-board material that inspired her in Tuesday’s women’s gymnastics team final came from a familiar face.
Hours after Biles helped the United States to a team gold for the third time in the last four Olympics, the 27-year-old posted a photo to Instagram of herself celebrating atop the podium alongside fellow gold medalists Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera.
Her six-word caption spoke volumes: “lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions”.
The reference might not have landed with those not up on the latest gymternet scuttlebutt. But Biles’ words were a direct response to recent comments by MyKayla Skinner, a former US gymnast who won a silver medal on vault at the 2020 Olympics.
Skinner stirred up controversy after this year’s US Olympic trials when she posted a video to YouTube sharing her criticism of the team’s talent, depth and work ethic beyond Biles.
“Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be,” Skinner said. “I mean, obviously, a lot of girls just don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work ethic. It’s hard too because of SafeSport. Coaches can’t get on athletes and they have to be really careful what they say, 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 a little aggressive, a little intense.”
The US Center for SafeSport is the organization tasked with preventing the sexual abuse of athletes, which has been a pervasive issue for USA Gymnastics for decades.
Skinner’s comments drew immediate backlash from the US gymnastics community, including from Biles, leading Skinner to release another video blaming viewers for having “misinterpreted or misunderstood exactly what I was meaning or had said”. Three days later, she issued a formal apology.
Whether Biles forgave her former teammate was unclear. But it was clear early Wednesday morning the five-time Olympic gold medalist certainly didn’t forget.
