Bahamas: Gardiner and Davis Thompson’s online war of words turns ugly

Bahamas: Olympian Steven Gardiner and former sprinter Pauline Davis Thompson have found themselves in a war of words after the latter commented in a viral post that the athletes representing Bahamas should ‘pass the baton’ to others, if they are injured.

The comments which the athlete made her through her official Instagram post went viral and were seen as a direct hit at the 2020 Olympic Gold medalist Gardiner exited the men’s 400m heats at the 2024 Paris Olympic games due to ankle discomfort.

Gardiner fired back at Olympic gold medalist Davis for her rebuke of athletes who she claimed failed to be transparent about their physical condition ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris.

Through a social media post, Gardiner said, “To Pauline Davis, please do not ever speak on me because you have never been an influential person to many of us athletes and you would love to see us suffer and it show.”

He continued to say that she wasn’t in attendance during his warm up but she was the first one to broadcast her ‘loud‘ and ‘wrong‘ remarks to spread lies and propaganda which the athlete said is ‘pure evilness‘. “But you’ll be just alright. I’ll pray for you just like others,” he added.

Following this, the female again took to her Instagram and remarked, “I am truly sorry that you feel that way, Steven Gardiner. Several things that you Bahamian athletes enjoy today are because of my as well as other top Bahamian athletes’ hard work.” She added that why would she want him to fail when she told the world about each of the athletes.

“The people that you should hate are the GUTLESS, Spineless Morally Warp ungrateful people who hate us athletes as they can never call themselves an Olympian, a World Champion, an Olympic Champion. I wish you all the best to continue to let your light shine for our BahamaLand,” she added.

Meanwhile, the netizens seem to enjoy this ‘meltdown in Paris’ and are watching these exchanges of words which should have be done behind closed doors. But this time, in Paris, with several athletes being in the middle of a lot of controversies, it is being believed that this is some of the greatest Bahamian theatre live from Paris.

Netizens are waiting to see what the next reply would be in this ongoing juicy row between the Bahamian athletes on social media.

A user named Carla said, “Seriously this back and forth with Steven Gardiner and Pauline Davis is going too far” while another user remarked, “Steven Gardiner 1; Pauline Davis 0,” depicting that Gardiner is winning this verbal spat.