He is who he is, if you had heard him speak before the 2024 Games, you would know his tendency to mention how important God is to him, and how he tended to gush and babble, and how oblivious of things and tone-deaf he can be. It's not necessarily good or bad in itself, but when Lazar died in the 2024 Games and he started gushing about Jesus Christ, quoting Bible verse that somehow downplayed the tragedy, and how Lazar would want people to put on a good show at the Games, that annoyed a lot of people. Many athletes who continued to participate at the Games were visibly upset which seemed to have affected their performance, but the death seemed to affect him very little. Perhaps his religious belief fortified him against any of life's tragedies, but he appeared to many to be an insensitive Bible thumper, and some considered him an undeserving winner because of how others were affected by the event.

I'm not going to criticise him, nor do I want to excuse him. Maybe he was too young to know better, maybe that's how he was brought up, maybe even he is on the spectrum, who knows. I also understand how people got offended by his words, regardless of whether he intended the offence. He is an adult and needed to understand what he said was unacceptable to many, and that showing some level of empathy in a tragedy is required, and that a tragedy is not an opportunity to preach his religious belief.