On Saturday, the 2016 Rio Olympics had its first full day of events and the United States got into the act quite quickly. Nineteen-year-old Ginny Thrasher took home the gold medal in the women’s 10-meter air rifle event in impressive fashion, and there was a lot to be proud of. On the flip side of things, there were some who found it to be the perfect opportunity to come down upon the U.S., and some of the snarkiest comments came from actor Wil Wheaton and Piers Morgan.
As reported by the Washington Post , the young native of Virginia impressively won the gold medal on the opening day of the games. Seen as the 45th-best junior air rifle shooter in the United States, she put it all together to take home the gold.
It didn’t take long before negativity came the way of both Thrasher and the United States, but it was in the form of sarcasm more than anything. Twitchyreported that Piers Morganwas over in Great Britain and still decided to offer congratulations in a way that was very fitting of him.
LEAST SURPRISING BREAKING NEWS EVER: America’s 1st Olympic Gold Medal is for Shooting. #Thrasher
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) August 6, 2016
Almost instantly, the social media world jumped on him and decided to rip him for raining on the victory parade of Ginny Thrasher. Many accused him of trolling and trying to bring all of the attention onto himself and away from those at the Olympics.
Some defended Thrasher by saying how much skill she showed by doing what she did to win the gold medal. There were a number of people overly offended by Piers Morgan attempting to make a gold win about death and not sports.
@piersmorgan Do not make the athlete’s ability and training in a sport that’s been around forever about death. Don’t diminish achievements.
— Kathryn C. (@kathyintx) August 6, 2016
Well, he wasn’t the only one to try and take the attention away from the teenager who had just achieved an incredible accomplishment. Actor Wil Wheaton also came down on the United States, but he did it in a bit more of a joking fashion.
America’s first gold medal in the 2016 Olympics was won by a teenager for shooting. Because we now live inside @TheOnion .
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) August 6, 2016
While snide, Wheaton’s tweet wasn’t nearly as damaging as that of Piers Morgan, but a lot of people on social media still took offense to it. Many users started firing back at him and were ripping on Wheaton for minimizing the accomplishment that Ginny Thrasher had achieved with her huge victory.
Conservative Firing Linereported that Wheaton is a liberaland has long spoken out against guns on his social media accounts and in public. This should have come as no surprise to everyone, but they were not happy with his pouring hatred down on the Olympics or the young shooter.
He did end up trying to take it back and went on to congratulate Ginny Thrasher later on for “winning her medal.” From there, though, Wheaton wasn’t just going to sit back and let everyone keep coming down on him for his supposed “joke” from earlier in the day.
Dear stupid people: this was a (not very good) joke. I’m not minimizing anyone’s accomplishments. Now go back to banging the rocks together.
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) August 6, 2016
At times, he would pinpoint some of those he wanted to direct his comment directly toward.
@wilw Oh and when it hurts while you’re banging the rocks together, that’s hitting your thumb. You’ll eventually figure out how to use it.
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) August 6, 2016
The 2016 Rio Olympics have a long way to go and there will be plenty more criticism of the games, the countries, the events, and much more. It was just kind of shocking to see the insults and snarkiness brought out so quickly. Many saw it as “par for the course” from Piers Morgan, but not so much from Wil Wheaton. The actor did kind of take it back and say he meant no harm toward Ginny Thrasher and her gold medal for shooting, but it was already done.
[Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images]
