Simone Biles Slams SportsCenter’s Male-Dominated ‘GOATS of the Games’ Photo
There are many great athletes in the world, but then there are the best of the best, or the greatest of all time (GOAT). It might seem like a nice idea to post a picture on social media depicting some indisputable GOATs, but who would you include? You wouldn’t want to leave anyone super important out, or it would definitely backfire.
SportsCenter had a major social media fail when they posted a picture of some GOATs including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Babe Ruth and Tom Brady. Do you see something in common with those names? They’re all men.
The since-deleted Twitter post included a picture of these famous GOATS standing with actual goats. It was a piece of art created by an artist on Instagram who goes by dayxsleep. In dayxsleep’s Instagram post of the picture, he wrote, “Who is the greatest Male athlete/player of all time!?”
View this post on Instagram
When SportsCenter tweeted out the picture, they didn’t specify “male athlete/player.” They simply wrote, “So many GOATs, who’s yours?”
Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was quick to point out that she could think of many, many GOATs who were missing from the photo, namely female GOATs. She replied to SportsCenter’s tweeted, “There are so many women I can think of that belong in this photo yet there are none.”
There are so many women I can think of that belong in this photo yet there are none https://t.co/Tsxyl8iMtO
— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) February 17, 2021
TODAY reached out to Biles to find out which female athletes she would include, and she mentioned Alex Morgan, Allyson Felix, Katie Ledecky, Lindsey Vonn, Megan Rapinoe, Serena Williams, Simone Manuel, and Sue Bird.
The original image posted on Instagram is of all male athletes, but it seems that the picture posted by SportsCenter was altered slightly. If you look extremely closely at the right of the photo, Serena Williams is just barely visible. Maybe that was their attempt to include female athletes?
Biles modestly didn’t include herself in the list of female GOATs, but she clearly deserves to be included on that list. She has won 30 Olympics and world championship medals, and 23 of those are gold medals.
You can learn more about SportsCenter’s controversial tweet in the video below.
Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles had people buzzing on social media overnight when she weighed in on an online debate about the greatest athletes of all time, pointing out the lack of female athletes in a post from ESPN. @SheinelleJones reports. pic.twitter.com/mSmTNJp90c
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 17, 2021
Who would you include in a picture of GOATs?