Female athletes unite against Sweeney betting ad, champion athletic achievement over sexualization

On Sunday evening in Budapest, British sprinter Amy Hunt crossed the finish line in the 200-meter final at the Ultimate Championship with a season's best time of 22.10 seconds. She placed fourth. But it was what she said in the moments after—not about her own race, but about an advertisement that had begun circulating online—that would resonate far beyond the track.

"Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like," Hunt said in her BBC Sport interview, her words pointed and deliberate. She was referring to a sports gambling commercial featuring the American actress, 29, best known for her role in the television series Euphoria and films including Anyone But You and The Housemaid. The advert had gone viral for its imagery: Sweeney posed nude, strategically covered by pieces of sporting equipment. Hunt's comment was a direct challenge to that framing—a rejection of the idea that women in sport should be defined by their bodies rather than their capabilities. She gestured to the winning time of 21.47 seconds, the fourth fastest ever recorded over that distance, and spoke of what athletic excellence actually demands: muscles, hard work, blood, sweat, tears.

Hunt was not alone in her frustration. The advertisement sparked a wave of response from female athletes across multiple sports, each stepping forward to articulate what they saw as a fundamental misrepresentation. The movement began with American gymnast Gracie Kramer, who posted a training montage of herself and captioned it simply: "I don't know what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what women in sport look like." Kramer told BBC World Service that she had not anticipated the scale of the reaction. She had simply wanted to uplift women, to remind them that sexualized imagery need not be the dominant narrative in sports. What followed was an outpouring. Athletes from gymnastics, swimming, cycling, rugby, and water polo shared their own stories of training, competing, and the toll their dedication had taken.

Ariarne Titmus, Australia's four-time Olympic swimming champion, described the advert as "a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft." She posed a question that cut to the heart of the controversy: "How do we live in a world where monetising a woman's body and sexualising women's sport is still a thing?" Sophie Capewell, a British Olympic cyclist, noted that the advert presented "a very specific picture of women around sport" and questioned why that particular image had been chosen to represent the industry. She emphasized that the issue was not about autonomy—women should be free to make their own choices about their bodies—but rather about the singular narrative being pushed: that this was the face of women's sports, the only story worth telling.

England rugby player Alex Matthews raised another concern: that such imagery could mislead young women into believing there was a single, idealized body type required for athletic success. "You don't get that idolised perfect body," she said. In rugby especially, she noted, diversity of body type is essential. Every athlete brings different strengths. Matthews recalled the Olympic village at Tokyo 2020, where she had witnessed athletes of varying heights, builds, and ages—all of them exceptional at what they did. That, she suggested, was the real picture of women in sport.

Gracie Kramer reflected on her own experience as a gymnast, accustomed to competing in a leotard and receiving "very demeaning and objectifying" messages as a result. The trend she had started, she said, felt powerful because it allowed women to reclaim the narrative. "It's so cool to see all the incredible athletes hopping on this trend, uplifting themselves, uplifting each other," she told BBC World Service. She had wanted to stand up not only for herself but for women who did not wish to be objectified, who rejected being "looped into this unfortunate narrative that's been pushed for a long time."

Sweeney herself did not issue a direct response to the criticism. Instead, she posted a series of images on social media—ESPN magazine covers featuring athletes including tennis champion Serena Williams and MMA fighter Ronda Rousey, alongside male athletes such as NFL player Myles Garrett and basketball player Karl-Anthony Towns. The implication appeared to be one of hypocrisy: that other athletes had posed in similar ways without facing the same backlash. This was not Sweeney's first brush with controversy. A year earlier, she had appeared in an advertisement for American Eagle jeans with the slogan "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans," a play on words that sparked debate over race and beauty standards. The current dispute, however, had struck a different nerve—one that spoke directly to how women athletes themselves wished to be seen and valued in the world of sport.