World Athletics study reveals vicious online abuse faced by Olympians

Track & Field's governing body scanned twitter handles of 123 athletes through the Tokyo Games to find a flood of abusive posts targeting them

After winning the 400m hurdles and smashing her own world record at the Tokyo Olympics, US sprinter Sydney McLaughlin released a video where she broke down revealing how she was being subjected to vicious online abuse. The video had been made before the Olympics, after Mclaughin had won the US Olympic track and field trials in June, with a new world record (51.90 seconds), beating her fiercest competitor Dalilah Muhammad, who held the previous record (52.16). McLaughlin became the first woman to break the 52-second barrier. It was her moment under the sun.

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Instead, she was overwhelmed by the negative attention thrown at her.

“I am grateful for the platform. I am grateful to be able to reach people. But I don’t want it, like when I tell you I don’t want fame, I don’t want any of that. It’s toxic. It genuinely, physically makes me sick,” said McLaughlin. “…at the age of 21, a two time Olympian and world record holder I would just need a little bit of respect, just a little bit.”

The video offered a glimpse of the impact online vilification can have on elite athletes and a study released by track & field’s world governing body, World Athletics (WA) on November 25 showed the extent of that abuse, most of it faced by female athletes. The study, which looked at a sample of 161 Twitter handles of athletes involved in the Tokyo Olympics through the duration of the Games, found a flood of sexist, racist, transphobic, homophobic and violent posts targeting these athletes.

“In this timeframe, 240,707 tweets including 23,521 images, GIFs and videos were captured for analysis. This included text analysis through searches for slurs, offensive images and emojis and other phrases that could indicate abuse,” said WA.

There were 23 athletes who were abused, with 132 discriminatory posts originating from 119 accounts. Of the 23 athletes, 16 were women with 115 of the 132 identified abusive posts—or 87 percent of them—directed at female athletes.

“63% of identified abuse was directed at just two athletes—both black and female –while the two most common categories of abuse were of a sexist (29%) and/or racist (26%) nature, accounting for 55% of all identified abuse.”

Unfounded doping accusations made up 25% of abusive messages. Almost 90 percent of racist abuse was targeted at US athletes, despite them representing only a quarter of the sample.

The research found sixty five percent of the posts to be gravely abusive, and required legal intervention.

“Where tweets have passed a criminal threshold, World Athletics has, together with their relevant Member Federation, passed over information to law enforcement in that country,” said WA.

“This research is disturbing in so many ways but what strikes me the most is that the abuse is targeted at individuals who are celebrating and sharing their performances and talent as a way to inspire and motivate people,” said WA President Sebastian Coe. “To face the kinds of abuse they have is unfathomable and we all need to do more to stop this. Shining a light on the issue is just the first step.”

It is no secret that trolling and abusive content have exploded on social media platforms and elite athletes are equally affected by it. Around the world, sporting bodies are trying to bring measures to safeguard their athletes. Last year, England football authorities boycotted social media platforms for some time in response to online racist abuse against a number of black players. They were joined by professional athletes, sports teams, governing bodies, and broadcasters.

The problem is no less severe in India.

Fast bowler Mohammed Shami was singled out for online abuse after India lost to Pakistan at the T20 World Cup last month, prompting Virat Kohli to say that the abusers are “spineless and the lowest level of human potential that one can operate at.” Kohli promptly received a rape threat on Twitter against his family. Mumbai Police’s cyber cell traced the tweet back to Akubathini Ramanagesh, a 23-year-old software engineer in Hyderabad who was then arrested.

Sports psychologist and mental conditioning coach Swaroop Savanur says it is important to stand up to the abusers.

“When Virat Kohli came out in support of Shami it presented a picture of what line the Indian team has taken. Not that Shami needed to know that he has the support of his captain, but it is very important for the outside world to call out such hate mongers,” said Savanur, who works with a number of India’s top athletes.

“Several players have come to me whenever they have been subjected to online abuse and the first thing I tell them is to accept the nature of this beast and then to know whether the athlete needs to respond or react at all. Many times the athlete does not take it seriously. But of course, if it is of any criminal intent, then they have to take remedial measures.”

Savanur said that more and more people are talking about it and finding ways to deal with it. “Earlier it was hidden and people would not talk about it openly and suffer silently. Now the athletes don’t feel lost when they are targeted,” said Savanur, who is associated with Kings XI Punjab and the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.

Max Siegel, CEO of USA Track&Field, said the WA survey has confirmed that US athletes are disproportionately targeted for abuse and hate on social media.

“Increasing evidence indicates that this is driven by a huge rise in prejudice against race, gender and social status. Simply put, this type of behaviour is disgusting and utterly unacceptable,” he said.