Olympic runner Ryan Gregson, husband of four-time Olympian Genevieve Gregson (nee Lacaze), has issued an apology after making disparaging remarks about female runners in a podcast that has sparked widespread backlash.
Speaking on For The Kudos, Gregson reflected on another runner competing in a 10km race recently who was on track to record a personal best and had a “girl” just behind him.
The woman they referred to was Agnes Jebet Ngetich, the 10km world record holder and current Cross Country World Champion.
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“Funny one, so they did a 10k recently,” Gregson, who represented Australia in the 1500m at the London and Rio Games, said on the podcast.
“And I think Liam ran about, I think this may have been 3 weeks ago, Liam ran a 28.20 something and Tim maybe 28.50. But Liam had a girl, Liam had a girl behind him for the first 5k and I just said like, ‘Mate, that would be such a weird experience’. You’re on track for a PB, you know you’re going well but there’s a girl right next to you at halfway. You’re just re-evaluating everything.
“You’re like ‘I’m on for a career day today, but am I going to be chicked?
“He’s not the type of guy who should, that shouldn’t even be going in your head, you’d just be shook. You’d just be going through all your life’s choices like how did I end up here, like why didn’t I study harder or something like that.”
Shared by The Female Athlete Project (TFAP) and Femmi (a women’s running podcast) on Instagram, the backlash was swift.
“This is disturbing @ryangregson25 @thewolfferine to think you feel so comfortable to speak about women like this publicly on a podcast. Last I checked your wife is one of the best in the country. @forthekudos do better,” said former Olympian and TFAP founder Chloe Dalton.
Gregson’s wife is four-time Olympian Genevieve (nee LaCaze) who competed in steeplechase across three Olympics before transitioning to marathon running for the Paris Games.
The episode sparked a wave of videos and reels from female runners, calling out the podcast for the remarks.
The two Instagram accounts (TFAP and Femmi) have now turned off comments after more than 1000 comments were left on the original post.
FTK podcast issued a ten-minute apology episode on Sunday night with the three hosts Riley Wolff, Joel Tobin-White and Gregson.
“Firstly I owe an apologue for my comments on the episode. This isn’t a representation of how I see women in sport. My wife is an elite athlete and some of my proudest moments in the sport of running have been watching her win or be successful and beat up on male athletes,” Gregson said.
“Since yesterday, I’ve locked away from social media because I am ashamed that I have offended so many people. I’ve read the comments initially and I’ve seen how offending it’s been for women to hear this clip and for that, from the bottom of my heart, I am truly sorry. That isn’t me.”
Tobin White also apologised for the original apology left on the post.
“I wrote something up and I missed actually, the words ‘I’m sorry’. And for that I am sorry,” he said.
“I was reading it back and I was like, I wish, I wish I didn’t leave that or I wish I came up straight off the bat and apologised because it just added more fuel.”
White added that they’ve also turned off comments on their own site after receiving offensive remarks labelling them ‘incels’.
“I feel maybe the show rosters have changed a little bit in the past 12 months and maybe we’ve lost some of that female balance and we’ve got a little bit too blokey and comfortable or whatever that might be,” said Wolff.
“This is not a defence thing, but we have had a really good history of great female hosts and great female voices on the show. And for whatever reason, we don’t have that right now.
“It’s all well and good to come on and give a sincere apology and be sorry. But if you don’t actually listen to what’s being said to you and, whether it be implementing changes or just at just at least recognising what people are saying, rather than just coming on and saying sorry, it just goes straight back to recording as is. I really want to learn from this.”
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