Paris Olympics: Simone Biles and MyKayla Skinner’s social media stoush explained

Simone Biles is bringing the heat both on-and-off the gymnastics matt.

There’s no disputing Biles’s dominance in her field. 

She’s the GOAT of the gymnastics world and the United States’s most successful Olympic gymnast ever. 

At the same time, she’s proving a powerful force away from the Olympic stadium, clapping back at a former teammate’s criticism of the US’s gold-medal-winning team.

ABC Sport is live blogging every day of the Paris Olympics

Truth be told, it’s a bit of a saga. 

I’ll break it down for you the best I can. 

What happened between MyKayla and Simone?

Biles and Skinner have known each other for a long time. They were teammates at the Tokyo Olympics where Skinner won a silver medal on the vault, an event Biles pulled-out of with the ‘twisties’. More on that here.  

Skinner retired immediately after Tokyo, while Biles went on to cement her place in history as the best gymnast ever seen.

After Team USA’s win in the Paris Olympic women’s gymnastics team final, Biles took the chance to celebrate, while also seemingly responding to criticism Skinner dished out in the weeks prior. 

Here’s the post. 

“lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions ❤️🥇🇺🇸,” Biles captioned the Instagram photo, which featured the American squad celebrating. 

Biles didn’t tag Skinner, but it seems a pretty clear reference to her former teammate’s comments about the Paris Olympic team in a subsequently deleted social media video. 

“Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t like what it used to be,” Skinner said in the video, which was uploaded to YouTube during the US Team’s trials in June.

Biles didn’t take kindly to this, it seems. Nor did she forget it. 

Skinner tried to smooth things over after the video gained traction, suggesting she’d been misinterpreted. 

Biles posted a brief response on social media. 

Skinner’s longer, written statement appeared across social media a few days later. 

“It was not my intention to offend or disrespect any of the athletes or to take away from their hard work,” she wrote.

“I take full responsibility for what I said and I deeply apologise.”

Fuel for the F.A.A.F.O

The comments weren’t just fuel for Biles, but perhaps the entire team. 

At one press conference, Biles revealed the team’s nickname was a little NSFW, so she acronymised it to F.A.A.F.O.

I’ll let you imagine the start, but it ends with and find out. 

I warned you it was not safe for work. 

Biles has since moved to clarify their actual (or at least public-facing) nickname is “the Golden Girls”, a reference to their apparent advanced age.

But it seems clear the entire team’s been using the social media stoush as some form of motivation. 

Skinner, for her part, has been quiet on socials lately.  

Biles revealed she’d been blocked by her former teammate, something that was seemingly backed up by her teammate Jordan Chiles on Instagram. 

A number of the pair’s teammates, former and current, piled on — potentially exacerbating the heat of Skinner. 

“Put a finger down if Simone Biles just ended you,” Sunisa Lee commented on Biles’s post.

“Let the stinky ‘turd’ lie in all its stinkiness,” Kathy Johnson Clarke, two-time 1984 US Olympic medallist-turned-commentator, posted on X, seemingly referencing Skinner’s comments.

Biles and most other Team USA gymnasts had already unfollowed Skinner on Instagram.

Next, Biles will attempt to secure a ninth Olympic medal, and second of the Paris Games, in the all-around final in which Australia is set to be represented by Ruby Pass.

•  The Gymnastics All-Around Final is scheduled to be held this Friday morning at 02.15am (AEST).

With Reuters