Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus blasts Sydney Sweeney over sexualised Novig campaign

Australian Olympians have turned on Sydney Sweeney over her controversial new Novig ad, with Ariarne Titmus accusing the Hollywood star of turning women’s sport into a sexualised punchline.

Titmus was among those to condemn the ad, delivering the most forceful response after the campaign, which features the US actor posing nude or scantily clad behind sporting equipment.

The campaign promotes Novig, a sports trading and prediction app, with the central idea that the platform is “just sports” and does not cover politics, wars or world events.

The retired Australian swimming champion made it clear she had not wanted to amplify the campaign but felt she could no longer stay quiet.

“I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this,” Titmus wrote.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist argued it undermined women who had spent years building credibility in elite sport.

“Not only is it a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft but every woman who enjoys sports for what it really is – teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence, unity … the list goes on.”

Titmus’s frustration centred on the way the campaign used nudity and innuendo to sell a sports product at a time when many female athletes were still fighting to be taken seriously.

“To take the mickey like this. I thought we were genuinely moving past this bulls**t,” she wrote.

The advertisement plays up its provocative approach. In one scene, Sweeney is perched naked on a basketball hoop as she explains the app’s pitch.

“Think you know sports? Prove it. Novig is just sports. So they wanted to show just sports,” she said in the commercial.

In another moment, while lying on a pool table, she adds: “You can’t trade this. I just look good here.”

Novig launched nationally last month and is pitching itself as a sports-only alternative to broader prediction platforms.

The campaign’s message is that the app strips everything back to sport, but critics argue the execution has done the opposite by dragging attention away from sport and on to Sweeney’s body.