Australian Swimming Federation Moves to Stop Fabricated Comments Attributed to Champion Athlete Mollie O’Callaghan
Swimming Australia has acted to suppress described as “fake news” and “made-up statements” associated with Olympic champion Mollie O’Callaghan about transgender athlete Lia Thomas.
Online Content Circulate Fake Claims
A statement credited to O’Callaghan but not published from her official profiles has been seen in posts on the social media site Facebook, as well as on the platform X, and claimed the elite athlete would refuse to compete in the 2028 LA Games if a trans athlete is cleared to race.
These words wrongly credited to O’Callaghan included a provocative comment that “sharing a pool with Lia Thomas is absolutely an affront and a shame”.
Formal Statement from Swimming Australia
Swimming Australia stood by the gold medalist in a announcement headlined with “fake quotes associated with Dolphin Mollie O’Callaghan”.
“At present, there are fabricated quotes credited to team member Mollie O’Callaghan seen on online content,” the organization announced this past Sunday.
“At no stage has O’Callaghan given an interview and provided commentary on trans swimmers.
“The platform has been advised of the fabricated stories, and O’Callaghan and Swimming Australia have requested the items to be removed.”
Latest Developments and Background
Updates that contain the statement attributed to O’Callaghan were still circulating on Facebook on the following day, while a Meta spokesperson stated that “we are reviewing the request”.
The federation did not offer more details.
American transgender athlete Lia Thomas is prohibited from participating in the female category under existing international swimming guidelines and was unable to challenge the rules in the period before the Paris Olympics.
World Aquatics enacted guidelines in 2022 which forbid anyone who has gone through “any part of male development” from the women’s division.
About Mollie O’Callaghan
O’Callaghan is a multiple gold medal winner after outpacing teammate Ariarne Titmus in the freestyle event final at the Paris event along with participating in four winning relays.
O’Callaghan secured a 200-meter freestyle global championship to her accolades in Japan in the summer.
O’Callaghan was racing in a international event in the United States recently and beat the competitors by almost two seconds to claim the freestyle race in a new best of one minute 50.77 seconds.
