The days are getting closer until the 2024 Paris Olympics, and the USA gymnastics team has already set foot in the ‘City of Love.’
Every four years the Olympics take place to showcase the world’s most highly skilled athletes in competition. “The history of the Games goes back around 3,000 years, to the Peloponnese in Ancient Greece. Sports contests organised at Olympia took place every four years and acquired the name Olympic Games,” as stated on the Olympic’s website.
The world has been able to witness athletes as big as Michael Phelps, Naomi Osaka, Usain Bolt, and more.
In a post shared by Simone Biles, she gave a glimpse into the team’s practice. The group of girls were snapped in their matching American flag themed uniform. The 27-year-old gold medalist captioned the post with three french flag emojis. Each of the other girls also reshared the practice pictures to their social media.
This empowering group is set to battle it off on the floor starting July 26th – the kickoff to this year’s Olympics. This post comes shortly after former gymnast MyKayla Skinner made a comment in a Youtube video– now deleted – stating, “Besides Simone…I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be. I mean, obviously, a lot of girls don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”
The 27-year-old later spoke out about the topic and how they misinterpreted her comment. She noted in her apology post on Instagram Stories, “Hey guys… 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 Marta (Karolyi) era.”
Fellow Olympian gymnast, Gabby Douglas, who unfortunately had to withdraw herself from this year’s Olympics due to an ankle injury shared: “Honestly, if you have a certain way of doing things, listen to your body…If you don’t need hours of pounding or you don’t need a tougher coach, and it works for you, then I say why not structure around how your mind is, how your body is? … I really believe that you can’t put everyone in the same category…That’s just my take on it, everyone’s different,” she told E! News.