According to a study conducted by the World Athletics, it has been found that at this year’s Tokyo Olympics, female athletics were the target of 87% of all online abuses.

Also read: Tokyo Olympics chief Yoshiro Mori resigns over sexist comments row

The study was conducted during the Tokyo Olympics games itself and its findings were published on Thursday, November 25, 2021. Last month, World Athletics launched a new safeguarding policy, which highlighted the need for social media platforms to adopt stronger safeguarding policies, for the welfare and protection of athletes. This study was a follow-up on the same policy. 

A sample of 161 Twitter handles of current and former athletes involved in Tokyo was used for the study. The tracking of their handles started one week prior to the opening ceremony of the Olympics and concluded the day after the closing ceremony. 

Also read: No cheering at Tokyo Olympics 2020 torch relay: Organizers

The study’s results gathered racist, transphobic, sexist and homophobic abuse of the athletes. Many of the athletes were also falsely accused of doping.

According to the study: “It also unequivocally highlights the greater levels of abuse female athletes receive in comparison to their male counterparts.”

In fact, later on, it was also found that 65% of the abusive posts warranted intervention from social media platforms and were deemed to be gravely abusive.

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said in the report, “When we published our Safeguarding Policy earlier this month, I said athletics clubs, schools and community sports environments should be safe and happy places for those in our sport,” 

Also read: Search begins for new Tokyo Olympics chief after Yoshiro Mori’s resignation

World Athletics has notified Twitter about the abusive posts uncovered in the research and both the organization are is currently working closely  to take action against the offenders and perpetrators.