21 days before the Paris Olympics, drama has erupted among past and present Team USA gymnasts. It all began when MyKayla Skinner voiced doubts about the newly selected members, including Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee, Jade Carey, and newcomer Hezly Rivera.
Her comments, which appeared to target Suni Lee and Jordan Chiles directly, drew criticism from Jordan’s mother, Gina Chiles, and Simone Biles herself. Shortly after facing backlash from the gymnastics community and Biles, MyKayla Skinner, the 2021 Tokyo Olympic vault silver medalist, issued an apology.
On June 3, 2024, MyKayla Skinner took to her Instagram stories, posting a video captioned, “Just clearing up what had been said on my current video!” In the video, she said, “Hey guys just wanted to pop on here really quick coz I know we did the re-cap on YouTube and I feel like a lot of you guys had misinterpreted or misunderstood exactly what I was meaning or had said. I mean, 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 just the work ethic is different compared to when we were doing gymnastics in the Martha era.”
She continued, “And I’m not sticking up for Martha or saying what she did was good, I’m just saying it was different. So anyway, sorry for anything that got out of context or seemed hurtful, that was never my intention and seriously, throughout the video, I was so pumped for the girls and it was so fun watching trials and doing it live with everybody. I love those girls and I’m seriously so happy for them so I would never do anything to make them feel otherwise. I’m so sorry if that came out wrong. That was not my intention at all.”