Simone Biles took to social media to celebrate Team USA winning a gold medal in the women’s gymnastics team final on Tuesday, posting a group picture of the team and their medals. But it was her caption that caught the most attention. Alongside the image, Biles wrote: “Lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions.”
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The caption was seemingly a pushback to comments claiming that the current U.S. women’s team isn’t as disciplined as previous ones. In a now-deleted YouTube video posted in early July, Biles’ former Olympic teammate MyKayla Skinner said: “Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and depth isn’t what it used to be.” She also said: “The girls just don’t have the work ethic… 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.” Her comments came after the U.S. Olympic trials when Biles was named to the 2024 Olympic team, along with Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee, and Hezly Rivera.
Skinner competed with Biles on the 2020 team in Tokyo. With different rules in place during those Games, Skinner was allowed to compete as an individual athlete outside of the four official members of the U.S. team. When Biles withdrew from the team competition and the vault and floor finals due to the twisties, Skinner stepped in an earned a silver in the vault final.
Skinner quickly apologized for her YouTube video in an Instagram story, saying: “I feel like a lot of you guys had misinterpreted or misunderstood exactly what I was meaning or had said. Sorry for anything that got out of context or seemed hurtful.”
Biles clapped back to Skinner’s initial video, posting on Threads on July 4. She didn’t mention her former teammate by name, but said: “Not everyone needs a mic.”
Skinner shared an additional apology on X (formerly Twitter) on July 6, addressing her words to “Team USA and our gymnastics community.”
The back and forth shines a spotlight on the seismic culture shift occurring in women’s gymnastics in the U.S., after one of the largest sexual abuse scandals in sports exposed shortcomings in the system for failing to protect athletes and hold organizations such as USA Gymnastics accountable. Hundreds of gymnasts, including Biles, came forward with reports of sexual abuse by team doctor Larry Nassar, and investigations revealed USA Gymnastics officials had been alerted to complaints but failed to take appropriate actions, allowing Nassar to continue treating athletes on the national team for more than a decade.
The culture of not encouraging gymnasts to speak up out of fear of being left off of coveted international and Olympic teams contributed to the long-lasting abuse, gymnasts have said, and the strict system Skinner referred to, led by long-time national team coordinator Martha Karolyi, played a part in part to keeping athletes silent. “I’m not sticking up for Martha or saying what she did was good, I’m just saying it was different,” Skinner said in her apology
Biles has catalyzed a change that culture, which many saw as toxic, and discouraged gymnasts from even smiling and appearing to enjoy themselves during competition. Her first coach told TIME before the Rio Olympics that Biles broke the mold in being lighthearted and expressing her personality at training camps and competitions, and she never discouraged her to do otherwise, since that was Biles’ personality.
In Paris, following the women’s gold medal performance, Biles addressed the culture shift that she helped to instigate, noting that “Gymnasts—they used to try to put us in a box. So if you weren’t like this you weren’t successful. When I came around nobody really talked or laughed and all that stuff [at training camps]. But I was like, that’s not how I do gymnastics. So I’m going to continue to do the gymnastics that I know and love and the reason why I fell in love with the sport. Now we show off our personalities and really have fun, but know that once we get on the floor, we’ve put in the work and it shows in the results. And we don’t have to be put in a box any more.”
Simone Biles took to social media to celebrate Team USA winning a gold medal, but it was her caption that caught the most attention.