Last year, Gabby Thomas sent a blazing message to the track-and-field world: “doping coaches should be banned for life,” she had said. A year later, the triple Olympic gold medallst is all but doubling down.
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“I am an equal-opportunity doping hater, meaning that if you are actively doping in the sport, I do take issue with that,” Thomas said at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest.
Last year, she’d also spoken about athletes who chose to train under such coaches as well. That being said, she still isn’t interested in naming anyone.
“Now, I’m not saying any names,” she continued in the X post clip. “No names are mentioned but if you look at yourself and you think that’s what you’re doing then so be it but I’m not bringing it up. I think Melissa ran really well today. Great competitor, and I’ll see her in the next couple of years.”
Thomas placed second in Budapest in the 200m sprint event. The winner was Melissa Jefferson-Wooden. Thomas spoke about the doping statement after the race when she was asked about her 2025 statement by a journalist.
In fact, the question also named Dennis Mitchell, famous for doping allegations as an athlete and coach. Mitchell is currently Jefferson-Wooden’s coach, who won the race.
Therefore, the whole conversation circles around Mitchell’s history and now his athletes performing well at various events over the past few months. In 2001, Mitchell was banned by the International Association of Athletics Federations for two years after his testosterone levels were higher than normal.
In 2008, he also admitted that he was injected with HGH, steroids, and EPO while training under coach Trevor Graham. Therefore, Gabby Thomas’ 2025 statement regarding doping coaches came into sharp focus after Jefferson-Wooden’s victory.
However, the athlete did not accuse anyone specifically of doping. She simply maintained that her take is still valid and that she stands by it all. To her, it’s only sensible for coaches with a history of doping to receive a lifetime ban.
Gabby Thomas Explains Her 2025 Coach Doping Statement
Gabby Thomas later shed more light on her original 2025 statement. She noted that hearing so many agents, coaches, and athletes support doping last summer made her feel “worn down”.
She felt that someone from the sport should speak up about it. Given her large social presence as an Olympic champion, she felt that her platform was big enough for her statement to matter.
Thomas felt relieved that doping has repercussions in the sport when identified. However, the athlete still believed that the sport has not changed drastically since her 2025 comments.
“Since last year? I’m not sure,” she said during the same conversation mentioned earlier. “I think after my comments last year, I did get, you know, a few phone calls. I did get a lot of comments behind my back. So I’m not sure if the attitude has changed that much, which is a little disappointing.”
Ultimately, she ended her message on a reassuring note. Thomas believed that there are still a lot of people in the sport who do it the right way. This is a sliver of hope for the triple Olympic gold medalist.
Either way, Thomas and her social media presence remain too large to ignore. In fact, the same could be said about her absence. Recently, the athlete quit X after a feud with an account that described itself as her “biggest #1 hater.”
Thomas later connected it to the athlete Erin Brown, with whom she’s had a back-and-forth on the platform for years. Brown ultimately denied having a second account dedicated to hating Thomas.
However, it appeared that it was much too late. Thomas has often spoken her mind about Brown and feuded with him. This time, the story was different as she chose to end the fight and leave the app altogether, saying, “Y’all I’m sorry sometimes I just can’t help myself but I’m officially retiring my phone now (on this app).”