Piers Morgan took a bizarre dig at Meghan Markle and her 'sensitive little spleen' in a column criticizing the first openly transgender Olympian

• Piers Morgan has criticized Laurel Hubbard, the first openly transgender athlete on an Olympic team.
• Hubbard, 43, was named part of New Zealand's weightlifting team on Monday.
• In a column this week, Morgan also made an unprovoked attack on Meghan Markle.

Piers Morgan took an unprovoked dig at Meghan Markle in a new column saying she had a "sensitive little spleen" and attacking the inclusion of the Olympic Games' first openly transgender athlete.

On Monday, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first openly trans athlete to be picked to compete at the Olympics when her country selected her for the Tokyo Games.

The 43-year-old, who came out as transgender in 2013, will compete in the women's super-heavyweight category.

Hubbard became eligible to compete at the Olympics in 2015 when the International Olympic Committee changed its rules around transgender athletes.

Under the newer rules, people assigned male at birth are permitted to compete in women's events without requiring sex-reassignment surgery if their testosterone levels are below a certain threshold.

Despite Hubbard's inclusion being allowed under Olympic rules, Morgan said in his column that Hubbard's selection on the New Zealand team was a "disaster for women's sport."

"Women born to female biological bodies are at a massive disadvantage to transgender women like Laurel Hubbard born to male biological bodies," he wrote in his Daily Mail column, a platform he has used to attack the likes of Naomi Osaka, Prince Harry and Meghan, and Khloé Kardashian in recent weeks.

"Why should Samoa's Feagaiga Stowers, who Hubbard beat to gold at the 2019 Pacific Games, now again have to face an opponent with such an unfair advantage?"

Morgan went on to say that if Hubbard won a gold medal in Tokyo, it would signal "the end of the Olympic dream as we know it."

"She will have only achieved the 'Faster, Higher, Stronger' goal by virtue of her superior male-body-originated strength," he said.

Besides a Pacific Games gold medal in 2019, Hubbard's best international result is a second-place finish in the 2017 world championships, and while she is expected to be a medal contender it is unlikely she will win gold in Tokyo.

Morgan went on to say he supported "transgender rights to equality and fairness" but "not when those rights damage women's rights to equality and fairness."

"This is unfair and unequal," he continued.

In the column, Morgan could not resist an opportunity to fire a shot at Meghan Markle, whom he has consistently singled out for criticism in recent months.

Morgan mentioned the former royal family member while writing about a hypothetical fight between himself and the British boxer Nicola Adams.

Earlier this month, Adams had jokingly challenged Morgan to a bout on Twitter after he said he was "identifying as female."

"The woke brigade loathe me enough as it is - can you imagine the reaction if I started trying to repeatedly punch a younger (Adams is 38, I'm 56) Black woman half my size on TV?" Morgan said.

"Meghan Markle's sensitive little spleen would self-combust in fury as she choked on her kale smoothie in California."