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The national swimming federation has taken steps to suppress described as “fabricated stories” and “fabricated quotes” linked to swimmer Mollie O’Callaghan concerning transgender athlete Lia Thomas.

Online Content Spread Fake Statements

A comment attributed to O’Callaghan but not posted from her official profiles has appeared in posts on Meta platform Facebook, as well as on the platform X, and claimed the Olympic champion would not participate in the 2028 LA Games if a trans athlete is allowed to compete.

The statement incorrectly linked to O’Callaghan contained a provocative statement that “competing in the same pool with Lia Thomas is truly an disgrace and a disgrace”.

Formal Response from the Federation

Swimming Australia stood by the star swimmer in a statement titled with “fake quotes attributed to Australian team member Mollie O’Callaghan”.

“There are currently fabricated quotes attributed to team member Mollie O’Callaghan appearing on social media posts,” Swimming Australia stated recently.

“Not at any point has O’Callaghan spoken to media and given remarks on transgender athletes.

“Facebook’s parent company has been informed of the false information, and O’Callaghan and Swimming Australia have requested the content to be taken down.”

Current Status and Background

Content that feature the quote attributed to O’Callaghan were still circulating on Facebook on Monday, while a platform official said that “we are reviewing the request”.

The federation declined to make additional statements.

American transgender athlete Lia Thomas is barred from participating in the women’s events under current international swimming rules and could not change the regulations in the run-up to the recent Games.

World Aquatics enacted regulations in 2022 which prohibit anyone who has gone through “any part of male development” from the women’s competition.

About Mollie O’Callaghan

O’Callaghan is a multiple Olympic gold medallist after beating teammate Ariarne Titmus in the 200m freestyle final at the Paris event along with being part of four winning relays.

The young champion secured a freestyle global championship to her achievements in Tokyo in July this year.

O’Callaghan was racing in a short course event in the United States recently and beat the competitors by almost two seconds to claim the 200-meter event in a new best of one minute 50.77 seconds.