"Lot of love for her but it's frustrating" - Suni Lee says she's disappointed in MyKayla Skinner's comment about her and Team USA

Suni Lee has expressed disappointment over former teammate MyKayla Skinner's comment about Team USA in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics, calling it "frustrating". Skinner later apologized. Lee and Team USA went on to dominate the women's gymnastics in the French capital.

Following the announcement of the USA Gymnastics Team for the Paris Olympics, Skinner, a silver medalist from the Tokyo Olympics, weighed in on the lineup during a watch party on her YouTube channel. She said that besides Simone Biles, the team lacked a "work ethic".

Skinner's comments went viral with the gymnast receiving criticism from fans and former athletes. She took the video down and apologized. After the team won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, the Tokyo medalist received a backlash again with Biles addressing her through an Instagram post. Lee, Skinner's teammate at the Tokyo Olympics, has discussed the comment in an interview with Glamour.

“We have a lot of love for her [Skinner], but it’s frustrating to see her put us down because she knows, basically, about every single thing that we’ve all been through. It was more annoying because of all the things that I’ve been through,” she said.

The 21-year-old Lee battled a kidney ailment for most of 2023, forcing her gymnastics career at Auburn University to end prematurely. At the start of 2024, the gymnast wasn't sure if she would make it to the Olympics, but she did and left Paris with three medals.

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Suni Lee on her all-around bronze's importance

At the 2020 Olympics, Simone Biles was a favorite for the gold medal in the all-around competition but she pulled out and a new star rose to the occasion: Suni Lee.

Gymnastics during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games: Suni Lee of the United States on Monday, August 5 | Getty Images

While Biles was again a favorite in 2024, it was slightly a different situation for Lee, for whom even making it to the Olympics can be viewed as an accomplishment. She placed third for the bronze medal behind Rebecca Andrade and Biles took the gold. She told Glamour:

“People are like, ‘You shouldn’t be happy. It’s a bronze medal.’ But I’m like, ‘You don’t know what I’ve had to go through to get this freaking bronze medal.'”

Lee had already won the gold medal in the team competition and later took another bronze on the uneven bars.