Legendary USA Olympic gymnast Simone Biles found out the hard way that getting into an argument on the internet is a losing battle.
Recently, Biles got into a social media spat with OutKick's Riley Gaines after the anti-trans activist posted a message belittling a girl's high school softball team while questioning the gender of one of its athletes. The attack on a minor prompted a fierce defense from Biles, who called Gaines out for being a "straight up sore loser" in a post on X.
Gaines rose to fame after she finished fifth in the 200-yard NCAA freestyle swimming championship, tying with Lia Thomas, a transgender woman.
Controversy arose when Thomas was given the fifth-place trophy despite the two swimmers finishing with identical times. However, there was only one fifth-place trophy at the competition to hand out, and Gaines has alleged that she was told that her fifth-place trophy would be sent in the mail.
Since then, Gaines has used that incident to launch an all-out attack on trans athletes as one of the leading anti-trans voices in America. This stance led her to recently post what she did on X, and Biles' differing political opinion led to her response.
Now, another voice has entered the fray.
Former Olympic gymnast accuses Simone Biles of mistreatment in scathing statement
MyKayla Skinner, who competed alongside Biles at the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, recently released a statement claiming that her teammate "belittled" her while the two were members of the USA Gymnastics team.
Skinner didn't provide any specific examples of mistreatment, but she compared how she was treated to the comments that Biles has recently made about Gaines.
"As an athlete who has dedicated years to a sport, I’ve always believed that true competition should elevate us — not diminish others. That’s why it’s deeply troubling to see Simone Biles publicly label a fellow female athlete a ‘sore loser’ — simply for expressing valid concerns about fairness in women's sports. Throughout my own career, I endured being belittled, dismissed and ostracized behind the scenes by Simone."
She concluded her statement be saying that "It’s one thing to disagree. It's another to use your platform to bully and demean," while noting that athletes should be lifting each other up and "not tearing one another down for speaking hard truths."
This isn't the first time Biles and Skinner have publicly displayed their beef. During the 2024 Paris Olympics, Biles congratulated her teammates on winning gold without her by posting an image captioned "Lack of talent, lazy, Olympic champions ❤️🥇🇺🇸,".
This was assumed to be a direct response to Skinner's comments criticizing Team USA for their effort in the 2020 Olympics.
"Just notice like, I mean, obviously a lot of girls don't work as hard. The girls just don't have the work ethic," Skinner said, among other things, in a since-deleted video.
Biles has since apologized to Gaines, although she, notably, hasn't deleted the initial post that caused way more of a storm than anyone might have expected.