Former Olympic Team USA silver-medal gymnast MyKayla Skinner has been at the forefront of public scrutiny ever since her remarks about the current 2024 Paris Games roster.
That is to say, Simone Biles, who was Skinner's former teammate at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, did not take her comments lightly, as the seven-time gold medal winner took to social media on a couple occasions to retaliate. In particular, after the U.S. team won the Olympic women's artistic team all-around in Paris, Biles used her platform on Instagram to post an apparent dig at Skinner.
Biles made the caption, "lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions," which was in response to Skinner's original comments.
At first glance, it’s just another celebratory #Olympics post on Simone Biles’ Instagram.
Except somewhere in Paris, Biles dropped the mic directly on former teammate MyKayla Skinner’s head.@DanaONeilWriter on the star's stinging caption ⤵️ https://t.co/llK0eigBow pic.twitter.com/UXQUM3Tvtq
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) July 31, 2024
Following this post, which received over 4 million likes, Skinner says that the dispute with Biles has led to she and her family receiving so much backlash that they actually got death threats.
"So please, at this point I'm just asking for it to stop for the sake of my family because enough is enough... Hate that includes death threats to me my family and even my agent. My family and my friends don't deserve to be caught in the crossfire here. They've done nothing."
Skinner directly asked Biles to help dissolve the dissension, as she wants unity with her old teammate.
2014 World Championships: Biles (left); Skinner (right)
"We've been attacked in ways that I'm certain you never intended. Your performance, the team's performance and the Olympics in general should be a time that we support one another."
Related: Simone Biles Trolls Ex-Olympic Teammate After Winning Gold And Then Gets Blocked
