We have to know how they define "abuse" or "abusive" to be able to answer the question. They obviously have a definition since they were able to determine that 0.2 percent of posts were "abusive," but we need to know what it is before we guess.
I once watched a CSPAN call-in show where some news broke at the beginning of the show resolving a certain government issue, but then every caller for two hours wanted to talk about the issue that news related to, but clearly had missed the update earlier in the show so the whole episode was just people making off the wall theories about an issue that had been announced as resolved on the same episode. The host was visibly frustrated all throughout.
This is what it feels like reading all these posts guessing non-track athletes when the initial post clearly says its limited to track.
I once watched a CSPAN call-in show where some news broke at the beginning of the show resolving a certain government issue, but then every caller for two hours wanted to talk about the issue that news related to, but clearly had missed the update earlier in the show so the whole episode was just people making off the wall theories about an issue that had been announced as resolved on the same episode. The host was visibly frustrated all throughout.
This is what it feels like reading all these posts guessing non-track athletes when the initial post clearly says its limited to track.
Well, the initial post just said "world athletics". And if you are from the U.S., there's a 10% chance you parse this as "track related" and a 90% chance you parse it as "athlete related".
Presumably since this was a World Athletics study it focused on track and field athletes.
You are right. I just realized it was WA and not the IOC who released the report. Mea culpa! :)
That, obviously, changes the answer...
That settled, it's safe to say 1 U.S. athlete took a lot of abuse and 1 other athlete. I'm guessing Hiltz for the U.S. athlete, but Lyles and Richardson are good guesses.
We have to know how they define "abuse" or "abusive" to be able to answer the question. They obviously have a definition since they were able to determine that 0.2 percent of posts were "abusive," but we need to know what it is before we guess.
This is what's giving me pause on Lyles and Richardson. Criticism, sure. But abuse? I'm not sure about that. Lyles definitely got his fair share of shots from the NBA community, but I wouldn't outright call them abusive.
Hiltz, OTOH, likely received some genuine abuse (threats of violence, etc.) and would make sense for one of the athletes. Given the other almost certainly isn't American, I would take wild guess and say Nadeem (javelin champion) being abused by Indians. Chopra was the massive favorite, Nadeem had an insane (frankly suspiciously so) performance to win, there are over a billion of them, and Indian-Pakistani relations are still not the best.
Assuming this is only athletics and not boxing, because the boxer out of the Macho Man episode of South Park had to have been #1.
Lyles was likely #1 because he talked a ton of crap going in which makes you a target. His antics after the 200, "getting" covid, as well as past race baiting comments also draw attention. #2 is tougher. Could easily see Shacarri although she was pretty quiet during the Olympics, maybe Syd although I think people talk more about hate she gets then her actually getting hate. Possibly Hiltz because people are tired of pretending the non binary thing is real and the absurdity of Goucher emphasizing "they" throughout the games was obnoxious. I'll go with Shacarri because she had big billing ahead of the games which likely leads to more hate.
The Boxer(s) and the Australian Break Dancer....incredibly easy answer
as previously stated, neither competed in "Athletics"
If two athletes accounted for 82% and 49% was American, there was one foreign athlete that got between 33% (82-49 is minimum is the 49% was 1 American) and 51% (assuming all the non American was to one foreign athlete) of the negative comments.
I'm going Sha'carri Richardson (Silver in 100, almost DQ in 200) and Faith Kipyegon (DQ Reinstate in the 5K) as the most likely targets.
High profile athletes in multiple events tied to controversy.
as previously stated, neither competed in "Athletics"
If two athletes accounted for 82% and 49% was American, there was one foreign athlete that got between 33% (82-49 is minimum is the 49% was 1 American) and 51% (assuming all the non American was to one foreign athlete) of the negative comments.
I'm going Sha'carri Richardson (Silver in 100, almost DQ in 200) and Faith Kipyegon (DQ Reinstate in the 5K) as the most likely targets.
High profile athletes in multiple events tied to controversy.
Sha'Carri didn't run the 200 in the Olympics. She got 4th in the Trials.
Presumably since this was a World Athletics study it focused on track and field athletes.
There were only 1,800 track and field athletes at the Games. Even if every single one of them had social media accounts it would be less than the total in the study of 1,917. It had to include other events.
The study wasn't just on the athletes that competed. Also included in the study were the reserves that did not compete, coaches, and officials.
WA studied online abuse of athletes at the Paris Olympics and the good news is it's a very small problem. Only 0.2% of all posts - basically 1 out of 440 - were found to be abusive.
That being said, 49% abuse went to Americans and it says 2 athletes received 82% of all abuse.
Does anyone know who those two were? Based on statistics, it seems like at least one has to be an American.
World Athletics wrote wrote:
Two athletes were particularly heavily targeted, accounting for 82% of all detected abuse between them. Overall, verifiable abuse was directed at athletes representing 20 different nations with 49% of abuse directed at US athletes, despite them only representing 7.8% of the study athletes set.
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