U.S. Olympic gymnastics legend Simone Biles found herself in an unfamiliar position recently: being on the losing side.
The multi-gold medal winner chose to clash with women’s sports advocate and former elite NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines on the issue of trans athletes earlier this month in a social media debate that turned nasty and ended with Biles backtracking and apologizing to Gaines.
Biles faced tremendous backlash over her pro-trans comments, and it appears that led to the gymnastics champion deleting her X account.
Gaines was among the first to notice Biles’ retreat from X and lamented seeing a “such a phenom go down like this.”
Gaines wrote, “-has an incredibly unpopular and morally indefensible take, gets rightfully ridiculed for it, issues a groveling public apology after unrelenting backlash, deletes account to pretend it never happened.”
The trouble for Biles started earlier this month after she inexplicably lashed out at Gaines following an X post the former NCAA swimmer made about a trans athlete in Minnesota.
Marissa Rothenberger, a male identifying as female and allowed to compete against females, pitched a shutout to clinch a state championship for Champlin Park High School.
The high school posted a picture of the “victorious” team on X but, correctly anticipating the backlash, turned the comments on the post off.
This led Gaines to quip, “To be expected when your star player is a boy.”
Then, Biles came in off the top Pommel Horse and blasted Gaines.
“All of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser,” Biles wrote. “You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!! But instead… You bully them… One things for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!”
Following Gaines’ refutation of Biles based on the facts of the inherent advantages men have over women in sports, X users laid into the former Olympian and blasted her for her comments.
That led to Biles backpedaling and apologizing to Gaines.
“I wanted to follow up from my last tweets,” Biles wrote. “I’ve always believed competitive equity & inclusivity are both essential in sport. The current system doesn’t adequately balance these important principles, which often leads to frustration and heated exchanges, and it didn’t help for me to get personal with Riley, which I apologize for.”
Biles added, “We all want a future for sport that is fair, inclusive, and respectful.”
While Biles will no longer be posting on X, her other social media accounts are still active.
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