Athletes

Did Pittsburgh Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin say his football players were not allowed to kneel on the field anymore and then cut the last player to kneel, and did an NFL mediator side with him over the controversy? No, that's not true: All three claims were made on a satire website that has a disclaimer that describes itself as part…

Did professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe have a campaign with the breakfast cereal Wheaties that was canceled after she missed a penalty kick during the 2023 World Cup? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for General Mills, the parent company of Wheaties, confirmed that the claim is false. The claim also started on a satirical website. The claim originated in…

Was Megan Rapinoe, a renowned U.S. women's soccer player, fired from the Seattle "OL Reign" team and the U.S. Olympic team, and did she also lose a multi-million TV deal as a result of missing a penalty kick during the Women's World Cup series? No, that's not true: Rapinoe only announced finishing her professional career after the U.S. was eliminated…

Does a social media post listing "1,884 Athlete Cardiac Arrests" and 1,310 deaths between January 2021 and July 2023 prove a connection between these mishaps and the COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: While the ultimate source of the information cited in the post lists hundreds of "athletes" who have died or collapsed for various reasons (some of them clearly…

Did the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) strip former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas of her NCAA National Championship record and refer her case to the Indiana state attorney for "possible fraud charges"? No, neither of those claims are true: This claim is from a satirical website, The Dunning-Kruger Times. There is no evidence Thomas is being stripped of…

Can exercise with oxygen therapy (EWOT) "cure the top 200 diseases in the world ... by using oxygen and raising people's heart rates," as was discovered by chemist Otto Warburg? No, none of that is true: Warburg was a German scientist who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1931 for his findings that cancer cells can survive in the absence…

Has a professional athlete never lived to be 100 years old, thus evidencing that exercise "doesn't increase lifespan" and "in fact, exercise can shorten lifespan"? No, that's not true: Globally, there are a number of professional athletes who have lived to be 100 years old and beyond, including several of whom are alive as of this publication. Furthermore, scientific evidence…

This article lays out the evidence Alan Gray (CEO of alternative news site NewsBlaze) is quite likely the key person behind the anonymously published website named Real Science hosted on the domain name goodsciencing.com. It was recently in the news because it was the source for some spectacular (but wrong) statistics about athletes suffering cardiac arrests (here's our fact…

Does an article listing 1,616 "athlete collapses and deaths" between January 2021 and December 2022 prove a connection between these mishaps and the COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: While the article documents scores of "athletes" who have died or collapsed for various reasons (some of them clearly non-cardiac in nature, like cancer, suicide, drug overdose or accidents), their vaccine…

Did Chick-fil-A just donate "another $1.8 million to anti-LGBTQ groups"? No, that's not true: The claim is a copy of a headline first published in 2019. The old story reported the fast food chain donated a combined $1.8 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Salvation Army. Chick-fil-A has since announced a "more focused giving approach ... giving…