Australia’s four-time Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus said: “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.
“How do we live in a world where monetising a woman’s body and sexualising women’s sport is still a thing?”
British cyclist and Olympic champion Sophie Capewell MBE, rugby players Lisa Neumann and Ellie Boatman and Australian water polo Olympian Tilly Kearns also shared their stories.
“I think it’s quite powerful, the amount of women who’ve come out and said something,” Capewell told BBC Sport after her post gained attention.
“It’s giving a very specific picture of women around sport and I think that’s the challenging thing. Why is that the face of the campaign that is associated with sport?
“And that’s the way you want to portray a woman, instead of it having, I don’t know, an athlete or anything else that’s more sport-centric.
“It’s not necessarily that people are upset with someone having autonomy, it’s the fact that that seems to be the only narrative that is directed around women in sports, or that’s what gets more popularity.”
Sweeney has not commented in response but she took to social media to post a range of photos of other athletes posing naked or in limited clothing, appearing to suggest hypocrisy.
The photos were a series of ESPN covers featuring the likes of tennis star Serena Williams and MMA fighter and wrestler Ronda Rousey, alongside male athletes including NFL player Myles Garrett and basketball player Karl-Anthony Towns.
Sweeney was involved in another controversial advert last year, promoting jeans for American Eagle which featured the slogan “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”.
This also received pushback from some on social media, with criticism surrounding the play on the words “jeans” and “genes” which sparked a debate over race and beauty standards.