Australian Olympian lashes out at Sydney Sweeney's nude sports betting ad: 'So much worse than I imagined'

Australian Olympian Matilda Kearns has criticised Sydney Sweeney's provocative new advertisement for sports betting platform Novig.

The former Euphoria actress, 29, has caused quite a stir over the past week with the eye-catching campaign, in which she appears nude while using various pieces of sports equipment to cover herself.

Posting to Instagram on Sunday, Matilda, 25, shared a video montage featuring clips of the Australian national women's water polo team training and competing alongside the words: 'I absolutely fking hate Sydney Sweeney's new sports ad.'

In the caption, the water polo player raged: 'Like what are we doing… so much worse than I imagined too.' 

She concluded: 'Here's some real women's sports content,' adding a medal emoji. 

Her post was quickly flooded with supportive comments from similarly outraged fans.

'Literally unfollowed her after that ad,' one user grumbled, as another added: 'This should be our women in sports ad!' 

'Sexualising gambling is gross,' someone else commented, as yet another fan complained: 'It's terrible! Keep fighting the good fight. This is women's sport!' 

However, some followers defended Sydney Sweeney, with several pointing out that the actress was simply 'doing her job'. 

Others claimed women criticising the actress' new advertisement were simply 'jealous' of her beauty and success. 

'Easy to hate someone you are also jealous of,' one user wrote, as another added: 'It still brought attention to women's sports... stop being such haters to another woman. Full stop. The end.' 

'Why all the hate? What ever happened to women supporting women? She didn't kill her kids or anything,' someone else wrote.

The criticism comes after Novig founder and CEO Jacob Fortinsky revealed that Sydney herself decided to appear nude in the campaign for an unexpected reason. 

Sydney was reportedly drawn to the platform because it focuses strictly on sports predictions, while other platforms allow users to make predictions on a broader range of topics.

'She said, "I'm uncomfortable with other platforms that have markets on what colour underwear I'm going to wear",' Fortinsky recalled in an interview with Front Office Sports. 

'There's something clean about sports,' she reportedly said.

Sydney holds an equity stake in Novig, making it unsurprising that she was willing to generate another talking point by appearing nude for the campaign.

'Sydney is great at captivating audiences and being the center of attention,' Fortinsky said.

'In some sense, it forces us into the national discourse,' he added.

Sydney has since hit back at critics of her new ad, sharing a series of Instagram Stories that highlight celebrities who have posed nude.

She posted photos of Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe and Caroline Wozniacki showing off skin for magazines.

Sydney also pointed out men who have stripped down in the name of sports.

Myles Garrett, Rob Gronkowski, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jason Kelce featured in her round-up of naked men.

The star hasn't directly responded to commenters who said they were 'disgusted' and 'disappointed' after catching the commercial.