After their gold-medal triumph in Paris, Simone Biles couldn’t resist defending her Olympic teammates while firing shots at an old one in the process.
Biles inspired USA to victory in the gymnastics teams final for the first time since 2008 on Tuesday, with their strong score of 171.296 enough to see off closest rivals Italy and Brazil.
And just hours later, the 27-year-old took aim at former teammate MyKayla Skinner while celebrating the current squad’s historic success on Instagram.
Biles shared a photo of herself, Jordan Chiles, Hezly Rivera, Jade Carey and Suni Lee holding the American flag aloft with the caption: ‘lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions’.
That sarcastic remark was of course a dig at Skinner, who sparked controversy by questioning the work ethic and dedication of this year’s Olympic squad.
‘Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t like what it used to be,’ MyKayla, who won an Olympic silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games, said in a now-deleted YouTube video earlier this month.
‘The girls just don’t have the work ethic.’
Despite Skinner excluding her from that brutal assessment, Biles ignited a feud with her ex-gymnastics buddy by appearing to hit back at her on social media at the time.
The USA Olympic legend took a thinly-veiled swipe at Skinner by writing on Threads: ‘not everyone needs a mic and a platform’.
She and a number of other gymnasts, including Chiles, Lee, and Carey, also blocked Skinner on social media after her comments.
They also both picked up Olympic medals in Tokyo seven years later despite Biles withdrawing from several events with a case of the ‘twisties’ – a mental block that that sees a gymnast lose control of their body during a twisting skill in midair.
Skinner picked up her silver in the vault event after Biles took a backseat, marking one of her greatest achievements as a gymnast after also winning four golds in the World Championships.
However, three years later the gymnastics duo who once considered themselves friends as well as teammates are now on frosty terms.
When Biles issued a thinly-veiled swipe at her earlier this month, Skinner backtracked by claiming her comments were simply taken out of context.
‘I feel like a lot of you guys had misinterpreted or misunderstood exactly what I was meaning or had said,’ she said on Instagram.
‘A lot of the stuff that I was talking about wasn’t always necessarily about the current team, because I love and support all the girls that made it and I’m so proud of them.
‘It was more about going back into my own gym and the work ethic is different compared to when we were doing gymnastics in the Marta [Karolyi] era. And I’m not sticking up for Marta or saying what she did was good, I’m just saying it was different.’
Yet following the team’s victory in the French capital this week, Biles showed that she isn’t buying that excuse by throwing shade at the former USA star.
Another former American gymnast, McKayla Maroney, backed her over the dispute with Skinner by taking her own swipe at the latter on Instagram.
‘It doesn’t get more iconic than this,’ Maroney commented in response to Biles’ post. ‘She f’d around n found out fr.’
Maroney then joked about sharing a moniker with Skinner. ‘Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my first name’.
As her fallout with Biles and the current USA roster continues, Skinner still celebrated their gold-medal victory on Tuesday.
The three-time world champion posted a picture of the team with their medals on her Instagram story accompanied by three heart emojis.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if her friendship with Biles is now fractured beyond repair.
