College swim champion Riley Gaines joins Olympic medalists to blast Nike deal with Dylan Mulvaney

College swimming champion Riley Gaines has accused Nike of disrespecting women over the brand’s controversial partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Gaines, an outspoken advocate for women in sports, told DailyMail.com that Nike made a “sad mockery of what it means to be a woman” by recruiting Mulvaney to promote its women’s sportswear line.

She led criticism of the deal — which could earn Mulvaney $150,000 per Instagram post — as a former Olympic gold medalist also said the brand “markets their products by obliterating women.”

Mulvaney revealed her affiliation with Nike in photos and videos posted to Instagram on Tuesday that showed her hopping around a yard while doing fake workouts while wearing leggings and a sports bra from the company.

Gaines told DailyMail.com, “Nike joins the growing list of companies that find it acceptable to disrespect women by making a sad mockery of what it means to be a woman.

“The message Nike sends to all girls and women is that men can do everything better.”

The former University of Kentucky swimmer is one of the most decorated swimmers in program history, becoming a 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer and a five-time SEC champion before her college career ended in 2022.

She became a fierce advocate for gender-segregated sports after competing against transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas in March last year. Gaines described the experience as “going into the race with my hands tied behind my back.”

She added that she will “shop from Athleta from now on,” referring to the women’s sportswear brand. Athleta signed former Olympian Allyson Felix in 2019 after she left Nike over the refusal to guarantee her contract when she became pregnant, and the company later issued a new pregnancy policy.

Olympic gold medal swimmer Nancy Hogshead, who won three gold medals and one silver medal at the 1984 games, said Nike’s deal with Mulvaney robbed the chance of a biological woman.

She said women earn only 1 percent of the money sports brands spend on advertising.

Hogshead told DailyMail.com, “They sell their products by obliterating women. They take the place of women. There are plenty of women – phenomenal athletes, great spokespersons, very smart, hardworking – so many people who could have had them. It’s a male takeover.’

She added, “Having these big companies is like just another layer of getting into women’s spaces, it’s another layer of trying to define what a woman is without talking to women, without talking to women.”

Hogshead, who founded the Champion Women group to campaign for women and girls in sports, said Mulvaney’s posts also sent a problematic body image message to girls and women.

“One of the ways we blame women, that we abuse them, is the issue of weight,” she added.

‘Women biologically need more fat to be able to have children. I want you to notice that Dylan is thinner than a woman could be [to] still get her period. So it glorifies an image of a woman — I think they call it girlhood — which is unattainable for biological women,” Hogshead said.

She said the sponsored posts “used Mulvaney and said ‘look this is a girl, this is a woman’ when no woman can look like that.”

Sharron Davies, a swimmer and Olympic medalist from Great Britain, also joined the backlash over Nike’s deal.

“Women are not parody, caricature, or stereotype businesses, and those of you who are disrespectful enough not to understand that will lose customers! We will make our voices heard by boycotting our purchasing power and companies that don’t know what a woman is,” she said on Twitter.

Mulvaney’s popularity on TikTok and Instagram has surged in recent months to a combined total of 12.5 million followers, meaning she can rake in $50,000 to $80,000 per sponsored post.

But the 26-year-old’s uploads propelled her division over new deals with global brands Bud Light and Nike, perhaps earning about double the size of the companies and the sheer reach of the posts, a marketing expert claimed.

Mulvaney rakes in at least $1 million annually through its partnerships with a wide variety of companies, according to recent estimates. Her popularity has been boosted by meeting Joe Biden at the White House in October and her ties to Hollywood A-listers.

Her other recent Instagram stories include a post about the luxurious Plaza Hotel, which overlooks New York City’s Central Park and costs up to $2,000 a night for a suite.

Another on Wednesday showed a Mugler handbag, worth about $2,000, donated by the designer brand to Mulvaney. In addition to providing the freebies for influencers to model and show off, some brands also pay hefty rates for the publicity.

The Nike posts came days after Mulvaney’s Bud Light band closed, with several photos and videos of the beer being shared on Instagram.

That also caused a backlash, with some people saying they would no longer drink the beer or buy other products owned by the parent company, Anheuser Busch. Singer Kid Rock even shared an angry video of him shooting a box of Bud Light with an automatic rifle.

Mulvaney, 26, had announced the partnership in a series of videos posted to social media over the weekend on the occasion of the NCAA March Madness tournament.

Kid Rock, 52, said after shooting the cans, “F*** Bud Light, and f*** Anheuser-Busch. Have a great day.’ Other conservatives said the brand was pushing “gender propaganda.” Country music star Travis Tritt said he would remove Anheuser-Busch products from his tour bus.

Mulvaney is represented by the Los Angeles-based Creative Artists Agency (CAA), and her social media profiles include her agent’s email address so businesses can get in touch about promos.