Female athletes chief targets of abuse on Twitter during the Olympic Games

A sample of 161 Twitter handles of Olympic athletes was selected, with 240,707 tweets analyzed over a three-week period covering the Tokyo Games, with a text analysis searching for slurs, offensive images, and emojis that could indicate abuse.

Female athletes were the target of 87% of abuse identified on Twitter during the Tokyo Olympics, according to a study released today by World Athletics.

As part of its commitment to safeguarding the sport, the world governing body worked with data science company Signify Group and sports investigations company Quest Global to gain an understanding of the level of online abuse in athletics.