Fierce Five Member McKayla Maroney Claps Back After Gymnast MyKayla Skinner's Olympic Shade: Need to 'Redeem My First Name'

Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Suni Lee and more Team USA gymnasts past and present are clapping back against MyKayla Skinner's criticism after the 2020 Tokyo Olympic medalist slammed modern day gymnasts' lack of "work ethic."

The former team USA member criticized this year's Olympic team earlier this month when she said in a since-deleted video that, Biles aside, "the talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be." She claimed that the girls competing "don’t work as hard" as athletes past and that they "just don’t have the work ethic.”

Biles seemed to respond the same day when she suggested “not everyone needs a mic and a platform” on Threads, and appeared to clap back again after the team took home the gold in Paris yesterday, July 30, captioning a celebratory photo of the medalists—which also included Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera—"lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions ????????."

Plenty of her colleagues were quick to respond in the comments, including 2012 Olympic champion and Fierce Five member Maroney, who wrote that it felt like she "need[s] to apologize just to redeem [her] first name."

"It doesn’t get more iconic than this," she said. "She f’d around n found out fr."

Lee boldly wrote, "put a finger down if simone biles just ended you ????," while Chiles added, "and that’s on periodt!!"

Former competitor Nastia Liukin simply wrote, "micdrop," while Laurie Hernandez  celebrated, "LMAOOOO I LOVE YALL."

Skinner did previously apologize for her statement, claiming that it was being "misinterpreted or misunderstood" in an Instagram Story, per NBC Boston. She explained that she had been talking about getting back into the gym herself, and the observations she made there, rather than targeting "the current team."

"I love and support all the girls that made it and I'm so proud of them," she said, apologizing "for anything that got out of context or seemed hurtful."

So far, she hasn't addressed the team's big win, or the comments that followed.

Next: Simone Biles Sends a Direct Message About Criticism Over Her Hair During 2024 Paris Olympics