Culture

Americans Are Trying To Cancel Our Beloved Excited Swimming Coach & Aussies Aren’t Having It

"Ladies, is it misogynistic for a man to show joy at a woman succeeding at an elite level?"

by Michelle Rennex  27 July 2021
ariarne titmus coach dean boxall americans australians

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Australians were left absolutely buzzing yesterday when swimmer Ariarne Titmus took home gold in the women’s 400m freestyle at the Tokyo Olympics.

Titmus managed to just scrape by America’s Katie Ledecky, who is the current world record holder for women’s 400m freestyle and who had previously won gold for the event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

While Titmus was rightfully ecstatic with her win, it was clear no one was quite as pumped as her coach, Dean Boxall.

Jumping around from the viewing platform, cameras caught Coach Boxall punching the air, screaming in joy, and essentially air-humping the glass barrier in celebration — and the world instantly fell in love with the excited coach. Well, at least most of the world.

Despite Titmus having absolutely no qualms about her coach having his moment to shine, some found Boxall’s display of joy to be offensive and rude.

“He means everything to me,” Titmus said after the race about her coach. “That’s just the way Dean is, he is just passionate about what he does, he becomes so animated. For him as much as it is for me. He puts 100 percent into being a swimming coach.”

Similarly, Boxall told reporters that he just “lost it” when he saw Titmus win and was aware that Americans might not have “liked” his response.

“I think I went outside of my body,” the coach explained. “Americans might not like it, I don’t know.”

“But I can’t help it. I believe in my athletes. It’s very simple when the athletes leave the pool deck… they begin the recovery process and they switch off. I go home and try to find a way for them to get better. I don’t turn it off. That’s probably why I let it out.”

“That’s a moment of being with this girl five years and having a dream together.”

And sadly, Boxall was correct. Americans really didn’t like the coach’s outburst of support, and they weren’t shy to share their distaste for Boxall online.

“Hey all — what the Australian coach did isn’t funny or cute. It bigfoots a woman athlete winning a gold medal and centers the attention on him. It’s vulgar and frankly offensive and he should apologize to her. And everyone else,” wrote one angry American, who believed a coach being supportive overshadowed a woman winning a literal Olympic gold medal.

“I know everyone is tweeting this clip like it’s cute… but turning the moment Titmus worked her entire life to achieve about yourself is kinda crappy,” added another American, clearly bitter that the US representative didn’t take home the gold.

As the annoyed Americans continued to share their terrible takes on Ariarne Titmus and her coach, words like “toxic”, “gross”, and “villain” were used to describe Boxall.

Thankfully, in true Aussie style, Australians banded together to take the piss out of the salty Americans through memes.

Unsure of exactly how Americans expected Boxall to react, Australians decided to take the absolute piss out of Americans and their unbelievable reach that the only way to celebrate women is by *checks notes* not celebrating at all.

Ah, truly nothing unites Australians like being able to collectively dunk on a nation of sore losers.

(Image Credit: Getty Images/David Ramos, Getty Images/Clive Rose)