Former ESPN anchor turned podcast host, Sage Steele, responded Monday to Simone Biles’s criticism of Riley Gaines, as the two spar on social media over the rights of biological women in sports.

The clash between the Olympic gymnastics champion and collegiate swimmer turned Outkick host unfolded on X over the weekend, when Biles called out Gaines for criticizing Minnesota’s Champlin Park High School softball team for having a player who Gaines pointed out is biologically a boy, but identifies as a transgender girl.

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Biles responded by telling Gaines to “bully someone your own size which would ironically be a male.” 

“It’s so sad, because she was America’s sweetheart,” Steele said during an interview on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle with host Laura Ingraham. “We all loved her, and maybe some still do, of course, but to do this in such an angry, vile, attacking way, I think, has shocked so many people.” 

Steele initially thought Bile’s account had been hacked, and immediately texted Gaines afterward. Gaines replied that the confrontation “came out of nowhere.”

“It’s completely hypocritical, not only to what she has done for body positivity for women and girls, but also to her own post just a couple years ago when she was on the floor mat and talking about how if she competed against men she would have no gold medals,” Steele said.

Steele said she now questions whether Biles has changed or if she’s speaking more freely because of her “GOAT” status. She echoed Gaines’s sentiment that Biles has “fallen from grace in a way I don’t believe she will recover.”

Ingraham asked Steele whether Biles would still be as decorated if biological men competed against her.

Steele responded with no, saying, “This is one of the very few issues that actually is not political. This is scientific. That is why almost 90% of Americans agree that men and boys should not be in women and girls sports.”

RILEY GAINES AND SIMONE BILES BATTLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA OVER TRANSGENDER ATHLETES

Steele also suggested that it’s not a coincidence that Biles is supporting transgender athletes in women’s sports, conveniently after she’s dubbed as the GOAT.

“This story really gets my ‘GOAT’, and that’s truly sick what they are doing to young female athletes,” Ingraham said. “So unfair.”