Lolo Jones came under scrutiny on Tuesday after responding to a Twitter challenge from paralyzed former football player Eric LeGrand with a few taunts.
LeGrand, who frequently tweets at other athletes, asked Jones if she wanted to race. Jones sent back a few taunting tweets before learning that LeGrand has been in a wheelchair since suffering a spinal cord injury in a 2010 Rutgers-Army game.
The Olympic hurdler began defending herself for the mishap and seemed to regret the gaffe, but she didn’t officially apologize until hours later.
“I’m truly sorry if I offended anyone by my tweet,” Jones told Yahoo! Sports’ Kristian Dryer. “When Eric challenged me to a race earlier all I knew was that he was a football player, but certainly had no idea he had become paralyzed from a football injury. I thought I was tweeting in good fun like I always do with the many athletes who challenge me to races.”
LeGrand declined comment to Yahoo!, but he did express support for Jones over Twitter and apologized to her for what took place.
Jones’ Twitter account has been silent since Tuesday evening. LeGrand expressed support for Jones again on Wednesday. He tweeted the following message:
This stuff between @lolojones is ridiculous, she is a great person who misunderstood what I tweeted. People stop bashing her it’s not right
— Eric LeGrand (@EricLeGrand52) October 3, 2012
