Gabby Thomas has been one of the most active athletes on social media, be it talking about starting her own brand or, more recently, advocating for anti-doping in the sport. “If you train under a coach who is known for doping (once, twice, or even three times for some) you are complicit.” Her bold take shared via Instagram story has got the world buzzing. And now, the Olympian has a confession to make.

Taking to X today, the three-time Olympic gold medalist wrote, “Why are there soo many anonymous troll accounts on twitter now? What happened to this app?” The reason for such a post? Let’s take a look at her X account. There’s a recent tweet where she said, “When I graduated from college, I came into this sport sooo naive. After six years, I just want better for athletes. We deserve it. My goal is to leave this sport better than I found it🤞🏽.” A great message instilled to see the development of track and field into a fair sport. No hate, no black spots, right? But the comment section?

“Gabby cut it out. We know the real you,” one user commented while many talked of her missed drug tests in 2020 as well. But after the current post, fans have started supporting her as she questioned the audience on X. One fan said, “That’s 80% of this app now.” This is not the first time that the track and field athlete had to voice out against trolls on X.

A while back, a user had said, “Gabby Thomas doesn’t sound like she’s the brightest out there.” The Olympian gave a sarcastic and fun reply, though. “You’re probably right 🤷🏽‍♀️ 😂 darn my Harvard degree.” But the reaction from X? Racism.

The comment section was flooded with comments from people accusing her of lying about her education. In a longer post, Thomas addressed the racism in the assumption that because she is an African-American, she couldn’t have graduated from an Ivy League institution. And she is not alone in fighting this trolling battle.

It has affected multiple Olympic stars. Noah Lyles’s fiancée and Jamaican sprinter, Junelle Bromfield, was exposed to a lot of criticism after Noah won the gold in the 100m, defeating Kishane Thompson. She was accused of being a traitor over social media after Lyles revealed that she told him what used to happen in the Jamaican camp.

Clapping back at her trolls, Bromfield said, “Honestly, I would say I’m not looking for forgiveness, especially from the people who came in my DM, talking about my family, talking about my mom. Those are the people asking for forgiveness, and I’m like, How are you going to forgive somebody who did not do anything?” In fact, the seriousness of the death threats has forced Junelle to stop visiting Jamaica altogether.

So, she surely would support Gabby’s statement as fans of the Olympic gold medalist are doing.

Fans support Gabby Thomas

This time around, fans have outrun the trolls in showing support for Gabby Thomas in the comment section. One fan said, “It’s a bot war for engagement.” Bots have been a problem on X. In a 2024 report, 5th Column (an AI that detects bots on social media) analyzed 1.269M accounts on X and revealed that approximately  64%  of the accounts were bots.

Another user came in her support and said, “Literally u don’t even know whose a real person anymore. Everybody hiding behind memes and weird s— .. I hate elon did this 😭” This is also a growing problem on the platform because many parody accounts have paid for the blue tick and now impersonate celebrities and public figures. Though X has rolled out updates that mark these accounts as parody or fan accounts, the confusion persists.

Notice how Gabby called the platform Twitter and not X? Referring to that, one commented, “Honestly, it’s time we stop referring to this place as Twitter. It’s a whole different platform, for this and so many other reasons. This is X now. The same thing happened to this app that happens anytime anything gets gentrified.” Can’t debate there because there have been massive changes ever since Elon Musk took over the app and changed the name to X. Don’t you think?

Another person showed support by saying, “You’re beautiful, talented, dedicated, hard working on and off track, so ignore anyone else who says anything contrary to that!” Sure enough, off the track, she is working as an influencer. The Olympian wore some stunning outfits to the Met Gala and ESPY awards. On the track? Everybody knows about the 5 Olympic medals she has in her showcase, not to mention the silver from the 2023 Budapest. And now, she would be looking for gold in September.

Indeed, there’s more to look forward to than trolls. And Thomas would probably do the same…