Olympic medal-winning gymnast MyKayla Skinner Harmer is drawing criticism for a since-deleted YouTube video in which she said the U.S. Center for SafeSport is making it difficult for coaches to do their job.
Skinner, who won silver on vault at the Tokyo Olympics, said coaches “can't get on athletes” out of fear of being reported to SafeSport, an independent entity that handles allegations of abuse from various governing bodies across the U.S. Olympic movement.
“(Coaches) have to be really careful about what they say, which in some ways is really good, but at the same time, to get where you need to be in gymnastics, you have to be … a little aggressive and a little intense,” Skinner said.
The 27-year-old Skinner, who retired after Tokyo, seemed to draw a direct line between the lack of structured coaching and most of the five-woman team that will represent the U.S. at the Paris Olympics.
"Besides Simone (Biles), I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t like what it used to be,” Skinner said. “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 later walked back her comments, posting on Instagram that it was not her intention to “offend or disrespect any of the athletes or take away from their hard work.”
She also said she hadn't fully dealt with the emotional and verbal abuse she experienced while training under former U.S. national team coordinator Martha Karolyi.
Skinner previously told The Associated Press she was “scared” to return to the national team in 2019 after competing collegiately at Utah, even though Karolyi was no longer part of the program following the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal.
Rachael Denhollander, a former gymnast who was the first to come forward and detail sexual abuse by Nassar, then a U.S. national team doctor, said Skinner's comments show that there's still a “long way to go” in educating people about the impact abusive behavior can have.
“When an athlete reminisces about one of the most abusive coaches in gymnastics history, suggesting her abusive model was necessary for work ethic, we have a problem,” Denhollander posted on X.
SafeSport declined to comment.
AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
FILE- Mykayla Skinner, of United States, prepares to vault during the artistic gymnastics women's apparatus final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Sunday, Aug. 1, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. The Olympic medal-winning gymnast has come under fire for alleging that gymnastics coaches are scared to do their job out of fear they will be reported for abusive behavior. She has since walked back those comments, saying she did not intend to disrespect any of the women who will compete for the U.S. at the Paris Olympics. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)
MIAMI (AP) — A storm system that was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico strengthened into Tropical Storm Milton on Saturday and forecasters warned it could intensify into a hurricane and slam into the west coast of Florida later this week.
Tropical Storm Milton was about 355 miles (565 kilometers) west-northwest of Progreso, Mexico, and about 845 miles (1,360 kilometers) west-southwest of Tampa, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (80 kph) while heading east at 5 mph (8 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said early Sunday.
“Milton moving slowly but expected to strengthen rapidly,” the center said, noting a “risk of life-threatening impacts increasing for portions of the Florida west coast.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 35 counties ahead of the storm's potential landfall. Since many of those counties are still recovering from Hurricane Helene, DeSantis asked the Florida Division of Emergency Management and the Florida Department of Transportation to coordinate all available resources and personnel to supplement local communities as they expedite debris removal.
Though no coastal watches or warnings were in effect, the hurricane center said the Florida Peninsula, the Florida Keys, Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and the northwestern Bahamas should monitor the system’s progress.
The storm is forecast to strengthen and bring the risk of life-threatening impacts to parts of Florida, with hurricane and storm-surge watches likely in effect from Sunday. Parts of the state are expected to have heavy rainfall beginning that day, threatening flash, urban, and areal flooding, along with some river flooding.
“There is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday. Residents in these areas should ensure they have their hurricane plan in place, follow any advice given by local officials, and check back for updates to the forecast,” the center said.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Kirk remained a Category 4 major hurricane about 1,345 miles (2,165 kilometers) west-southwest of the Azores with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) late Saturday night, the center said.
Large swells from the storm causing “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” were affecting the Leeward Islands, Bermuda, the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas and the U.S. East Coast. The swells were expected to move north along the U.S. East Coast and Canada's Atlantic Coast on Sunday and to the Azores on Monday, the center said.
Hurricane Leslie was moving northwest over the open Atlantic without posing a threat to land, forecasters said late Saturday.
The storm was located about 855 miles (1,375 kilometers) west of the southernmost Cabo Verde Islands with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (128 kph). There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect.
The storms churned as rescuers in the U.S. Southeast searched for people unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene struck last week, leaving behind a trail of death and catastrophic damage.
This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 4:50 p.m. EDT and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Tropical Storm Milton, center, off the coast of Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (NOAA via AP)
This Satellite image provided by NOAA shows Tropical Storm Leslie, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024 in the Atlantic Ocean. (NOAA via AP)
