On Tuesday, July 30, Simone, 27, reshared a photo on her Instagram Story of her dad, Ronald, using binoculars to watch Simone compete while sitting next to his wife and Simone’s mom, Nellie Biles, and Simone’s husband Jonathan Owens.
“My dad & his binoculars is soooo freaking cute 🥹,” Simone captioned the post.
Simone and the rest of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, which includes Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera, took home the gold medal during the women’s gymnastics team competition on Tuesday. With the team’s gold medal, Biles officially surpassed Shannon Miller as the most decorated American Olympic gymnast with eight medals.
“I don’t keep count; I don’t keep stats,” Simone told reporters, per NBC News, referencing the news that she had beat out Miller, 47. “I just go out here and do what I’m supposed to, and I’m doing what I love and enjoying it. Honestly, I would have had to Google that.”
The Team USA women’s gymnasts will follow up their victory at the women’s all-around competition on Thursday, August 1, followed by the individual event finals from Saturday, August 3 through Monday, August 5. Simone will individually compete for the vault, balance beam and floor exercise.
After the U.S. women’s gymnastics team received their gold medals, Simone took to social media to share photos of her and her teammates holding up an American flag — while also seemingly throwing shade at former teammate MyKayla Skinner.
“Lack of talent, lazy, Olympic champions,” Simone wrote via Instagram on Tuesday.
Simone’s caption may have been a reference to Skinner’s comments earlier this month when she criticized the 2024 gymnasts for not having the same “work ethic” as past Team USA members.
“Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be,” Skinner, 27, who was an alternate for the 2016 Olympic team and also was the vault silver medalist at the 2020 Olympics, explained in a YouTube video in June, while discussing the Olympic trials. “I mean, obviously, a lot of girls don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”
Skinner noted that it’s also hard because of SafeSport, which was established in 2017.
“Coaches can’t get on athletes which in some ways is really good but at the same time, to get to where you need to be in gymnastics you do have to be … a little aggressive, a little intense,” she shared.
At the time, Simone reacted to the controversy on social media, sharing: “Not everyone needs a mic and a platform.”
Skinner later apologized for her remarks, claiming that they were “misinterpreted.”
“I love and support all the girls that made it and I’m so proud of them,” she said in an Instagram Story earlier this month. “It was more about going back into my own gym and the work ethic is different compared to when we were doing gymnastics in the Marta [Karolyi] era.”
