Simone Biles-Riley Gaines feud sparks Stephen A Smith response

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ESPN character Stephen A. Smith largely agreed with Riley Gaines amid the previous NCAA All-American swimmer’s feud with Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles .

Smith’s remarks on Monday got here a couple of days after Biles launched right into a personal attack on Gaines after the previous Kentucky Wildcats star criticized a Minnesota softball league for turning off feedback on a photograph exhibiting a state championship crew that had a transgender participant on its roster.

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Stephen A. Smith on the ESPN "NBA Countdown" reside set at Intuit Dome on Oct. 23, 2024. (Kirby Lee-Imagn Pictures)

Gaines used Larry Nassar, the disgraced former physician who sexually assaulted a number of Olympic gymnasts, to additional her level about males being in ladies’s areas. Whereas Smith didn't agree with Gaines utilizing Nassar, he did agree with the unique premise.

"With that being mentioned, the factors you made to Simone Biles exterior of the Larry Nassar remark, that ought to give us all trigger for pause," he mentioned on "The Stephen A. Smith Present." "The truth is that it's a disservice to ladies in lots of people's eyes, that males transitioning to ladies get to compete in ladies's sports activities. Lia Thomas was an ideal instance. Her highest rating on the time … highest rating as a male participant was like 554th on this planet. He transitioned into being a girl and was high 10. That speaks for itself.

"And the truth is there’s an abundance of ladies on the market who've a proper to really feel the way in which Riley Gaines feels, Simone Biles. Now whether or not it’s proper for me or another person to say it's a completely different argument. However within the age that we’re dwelling in with Title IX in existence, with us being protecting of equity and equal rights and equal alternative to ladies to then piggyback off of that and following up on that years later to permit transgender athletes transitioning from male to feminine to compete towards ladies doesn’t look like honest."

Smith dismissed any notion that the talk over transgender athletes in women’ and girls’s sports activities was extra than simply on-field competitors.

Simone Biles, proper, and Riley Gaines. (IMAGN)

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"Once we lean on this argument about worry, worry – wait a minute. Any person’s not speaking about your civil liberties, any person’s not speaking about equality, any person’s not speaking about these issues permitting you to reside and let reside," he mentioned. "They’re speaking about competitors in sports activities. And for those who permit any person to compete in swimming it’s not gonna cease you from competing in boxing. It’s not gonna let you cease you from competing in different sports activities."

Smith introduced up the discuss round Ronda Rousey taking up Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a combat when each athletes have been the discuss of the sports activities world. He mentioned that whereas sports activities followers know now what would occur within the combat after Rousey misplaced to Amanda Nunes, it mustn't have been within the minds of any fan within the first place.

"We all know that in most cases, despite the fact that there are ladies that might beat some males on the market, by and enormous the elite ladies don’t need to be competing towards the elite males," he mentioned. "By deserve … I’m speaking about primarily based on their gender. You shouldn’t be competing towards males. I don’t wish to see a Clarissa Shields in a boxing ring towards Terence Crawford.

"So once we’re speaking about it from that premise – it’s one factor for women have a look at somebody like me and say, ‘Who're you?’ It’s one other factor solely for women to be girls, appearing like girls don’t have the best to really feel like there’s a drawback for them in the event that they’re going up towards a male transitioning to feminine."

Smith went on to say he hoped that extra males transitioned to ladies to ensure that sports activities leagues to have a transgender class to make it honest. Nonetheless, World Aquatics tried to have an open class in 2022 and obtained no real interest in the competitors.

"For those who ask me my desire? I hope a complete bunch of males transitioning to ladies come out of the woodwork. So we will have males going up towards males, ladies going up towards ladies and transgenders going up towards transgenders. That’s honest," he mentioned. "However what Riley Gaines is speaking about does appear a bit unfair, she has a proper to precise these ideas with out Simone Biles coming at her that means. Simply because she misplaced? She’s speaking about an unfair benefit.

Simone Biles from the USA waits for her rating. (Marcus Brandt/image alliance through Getty Pictures)

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"And there’s nobody that might actually dispute – if you're a male transitioning to feminine that there’s an unfair benefit. I don’t see ladies transitioning to males making an attempt to compete in males’s sports activities. If it’s occurred, and I missed it, I apologize. However I missed it, I have never seen that."