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Swimming Australia has taken steps to suppress described as “fake news” and “made-up statements” linked to Olympic champion Mollie O’Callaghan regarding trans swimmer Lia Thomas.

Social Media Content Circulate False Claims

A comment linked to O’Callaghan but not published from her online platforms has appeared in updates on Meta platform Facebook, as well as on Twitter, and suggested the elite athlete would not participate in the Los Angeles Olympics if a transgender swimmer is cleared to participate.

These words wrongly credited to O’Callaghan contained a inflammatory remark that “sharing a pool with Lia Thomas is absolutely an insult and a embarrassment”.

Formal Statement from Swimming Australia

The national body stood by the gold medalist in a release titled with “fabricated comments associated with Dolphin Mollie O’Callaghan”.

“At present, there are false statements attributed to Dolphin Mollie O’Callaghan appearing on platform posts,” the organization stated recently.

“Not at any point has O’Callaghan given an interview and given remarks on trans swimmers.

“Facebook’s parent company has been notified of the false information, and O’Callaghan and Swimming Australia have demanded the posts to be removed.”

Latest Developments and Background

Posts that include the quote attributed to O’Callaghan were still visible on the platform on Monday, while a platform official said that “we are investigating the demand”.

The federation refused to give more details.

United States transgender athlete Lia Thomas is prohibited from racing in the female category under existing governing body guidelines and was unable to challenge the policies in the lead up to the recent Games.

World Aquatics put in place guidelines in 2022 which ban anyone who has undergone “any part of male puberty” from the female category.

Regarding Mollie O’Callaghan

O’Callaghan is a five-time Olympic gold medallist after beating teammate Ariarne Titmus in the freestyle event final at the Paris event along with participating in four winning relays.

The 21-year-old added a freestyle global championship to her accolades in Japan in recent months.

O’Callaghan was competing in a short course short course meet in Indiana over the weekend and beat the opponents by a significant margin to win the 200-meter event in a new best of 1:50.77.