The Olympics is a time to admire and celebrate human excellence in sport, yet there are people out there who are still able to find fault in the athletes.
These people criticizing the men and women who have dedicated countless hours to their sport do so sat behind a computer screen judging these athletes on, are you ready for it — their bodies.
Recently cyber bullies body-shamed 22-year-old Mexican Olympic gymnast, , calling her “gorda” (fat in Spanish) and “pig”. Another user tweeted “Alexa Moreno has the body of 2 gymnasts together, she should have gone on a diet before going to the Olympics.” Another spouted off saying they thought Moreno only got into Rio because Mexico needed to fill an athlete quota.
While the number on the scale is merely a number it is worth mentioning, according to the official Olympics website, Alexa is 4’11” and 99lbs. Yes, just 99 pounds.
Thankfully supporters came to Moreno’s aid, slamming the vicious cyber bullies and instead focused on her talents, tweeting that “she’s a tremendous athlete” while another asked “body shamers-really? Can you sprint 82 ft & propel your body head over heals? She’s amazing & inspiration to young Mexicans.”
In addition to Moreno, 24 -year-old Ethiopian swimmer Robel Kiros Habte was heavily criticized for his physique.
Twitter light up during the 100-meter freestyle heat he took part in with tweets asking “how in the world did this Ethiopian swimmer … qualify for the Olympics? Overweight & embarrassingly slow,” Another mocked him as “the greatest chubby swimmer in the Olympics.” It didn’t take long for the nickname “Robel the Whale” to start cropping up across the web. One person on Facebook even went as far as to claim she was “ so ashamed of her country” for the Ethiopian Swimming Federation to let him compete while kindly providing a split screen image of Habte next to a picture of Michael Phelps. Come on, really? Why not be proud of Habte, who was unable to train for months prior to the Olympics due to a car accident, that he followed his dreams.
Heartbreakingly, the online bullying has taken a toll on Habte. He admitted to The Daily Mail, explaining he’s taking a break from social media because the criticism “has been difficult”. Habte also said that “some of the things people have said or written are not nice. I am a nice person, I would not say these things about others.”
Luckily many folks spotted the fat-shaming comments floating around the web and fired back, defending Habte tweeting that he is “a legend” they “love him”, he is “their hero” and told him to “keep following his dreams.”
So, while there is always people who will criticize others, no matter what they do or who they are, I say keep swinging, jumping, and flying Moreno, and just keep swimming Habte.
