Serious question: why do so many people on here have disdain towards Sydney?

It isn’t about personality. Like one poster noted, she has zero charisma.

The actual answer to your question is people have shown disdain toward Sydney because she is a born again, blood bought child of King Jesus.

The Gospel is offensive because all of us want there to be some way to earn our way (aka I’m a good person, I go to church, etc.) BUT the Good News Jesus brings is that He paid our debt in full, and that nobody can be deemed righteous without putting their faith in His completed work through his death and resurrection, conquering death for those that will simply believe. The Gospel is also foolishness to those that are perishing (aka every unbeliever in the world past, present, and future). Man’s pride must be slain, Sydney has put her faith and trust in the truth of The Gospel, thus this world will always stand opposed to her. She reminds me of another fierce competitor that is the best in the world at what he does as well, Scottie Scheffler….neither of them treat the outcomes of their sport as the ultimate (that is reserved for Christ) but the world wants to celebrate people that are so enslaved to their performance that it turns into entertainment (aka Noah Lyles, and many other examples). No other answers will get to the root level answer of your question, Sydney is disdained because she belongs to Jesus.

For me it’s her ties to Bobby Kersey. I don’t hate her or even dislike her but it’s hard to get excited about an athlete coached by someone with such a tainted history.

Is this for real or Barrett Dahl?

Agree. If you look for racism everywhere, you'll find it even when it's not there. It's such an annoying American mindset to make race the driving factor of all social phenomena. Even if there are 10 more important factors explaining negative outcomes, we go straight to race. It's a simpleton's mentality ("if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail"), and it seems to be more projection than reality.

The main points have been made already I think.

But Gabby Thomas's recent 'outbursts' are relevant here re coaching: why does Sydney feel it's right to be coached by someone who clearly doped his athletes previously? How does this with with her religious beliefs? It matters not whether he dopes his athletes anymore per se, but he used to (NB one of the reasons why I could never truly get behind Allyson Felix either...)

For someone who claims to be pious and righteous and grateful to God, I guess 'forgiveness' is part of that...which is quite convenient in Kersee's case.

I also loathe the lack of racing (yes, previous seasons..) which , in the context of the above, could be viewed dubiously. 21 to 22 in particular, where she stopped her season after the 4x4 in Tokyo early August, did no further meets that year, and then ran just twice before the USA's in June the following year. Similar in 23, where she had just 2races between her last meet in 22 and the USAs (and just 1 race in the 10months between Aug 8th 22 and Paris DL on June 9th in 23 (notably her only DL race under Kersee). When you prepare behind closed doors and then come out in WR form, it aint a good look...

One (silly) thing that bugs me is her "good job" to everyone she trashes after the race. Patronizing AF.

This kind of says it all that we are nitpicking. If she was over trash talking and me me me, she would get hate, but she wins and is quiet about it and we find issue with that to. We really should just enjoy this more. She's a HS phenom that more than lived up to the hype. Runs relays, dips her toe in events that are more risky...its all good. If we hated all the bible thumpers in sports that would be a lot of people.

I don't really know her well enough to hate her, but she's smoking hot, and, yeah, wtf are you talking about??

It's a beautiful city, I've never heard anything negative.

This was my original thought, but maybe some disdain it that it is overrated compared to Melbourne Perth, and Adelaide?

1) Watching her YouTube channel or some of her interviews this year would lead one to believe the opposite but whatever this is subjective
2) Why would the mixed relay be a challenge to her? She also races pretty much a normal amount. Last year Anderson Emerole made a video showing she competed multiple more times than several high profile athletes who literally never get hate for not competing. As of this year she's also raced quite a decent amount. Plus she literally IS challenging herself right now by choosing to race the 400 instead of destroy Femke again. Also, you think improving the 400mH WR is not challenging yourself? It seems like you are determined to undermine any accomplishment she does.

3) There is no way you apply this standard to every athlete. There is literally a Christian praise group amongst the top athletes on the DL/CT circuit this year with about 20 athletes. Josh Hoey is one - I don't recall anyone ever mentioning it here.

4) There is literally an interview clip from this year of Sydney praising Dalilah for a few minutes and talking about how she revolutionised the event.

From this and the rest of the drivel in this thread I can only assume that you are all full of s*** and for some reason holding Sydney to a 20x higher pedestal than literally any other athlete.

Bobby hasn't been involved in literally any controversy since before Sydney was even born. The "controversy" being entirely hearsay. It's obvious JJK and Flo-Jo (who by the way moved to be coached by Al Joyner in 1988 anyway) weren't clean but after that era nothing was heard of Bobby in that regard. I honestly don't remember Allyson having as much flack for being with Bobby as Sydney gets either. Same with Kori Carter, Kerron Clement, Athing Mu, Keni Harrison, etc. So it really seems that Sydney is being scrutinised more because she's just better, but every sign from her youth showed that she could be this good.

Furthermore Bobby improved her technique more than anything - she ran faster in the flat 100 before going to Bobby than she did this year.

"Behind closed doors" = outside on the UCLA track where college students could watch her practice if they wanted

Denying that racism is rife on this site is just delusion.

No, we just don’t like rapists

(mods: pls note that Trump is an convicted of sexual assault in the state of NY, in the words of the judge: “an adjudicated rapist”)

Gabby objectively hasn't been paid. Are you saying that your intelligence has led you to deny an objective truth?

Okay, but again, I don't see how the lack of racing can influence a dislike toward a certain athlete

Why does it bother you if she opts for a light race schedule?

It's not like she has an unfair advantage over the competition, anyone can choose to run as much or as little as they want

I'm a Sydney fan so from my perspective I'm disappointed she hasn't competed more over the years, but if you're just a track fan who is neutral toward Sydney I don't know why her activity level would sway you one way or the other

Do you care about every athlete's activity level or is it just because Sydney is a star?