Hmm, from what I understood was that the way she was elected was not fair and that her husband was one of the judges (unless this was fake news, it's hard to tell these days).

It seemed like it was just a publicity stunt if that was the case, get some attention and traction for being different and it may help her personally in the future, since she already had active potentially monetized social media accounts. Hate comments will of course happen but for many they'll just happy to get the part of non-hateful comments if before that there were none of either.

So if it was all a ruse for personal gain, I'd say it was quite disrespectful towards the sport and the country she represented, I'm sure many in a better position from Australia would've loved the chance to represent. If it wasn't, then well, nice try I guess to be a bit different but I don't think other participants appreciated that and I guess especially not the judges. :P

There's a time and place to try and be different, I don't think this was the case here because it came at a cost of others not getting the chance she got.