Two-time gold medalist swimmer Rebecca Adlington will take a Twitter timeout during this summer's Olympics in London.
Why? Because of trolls who send vile comments about her looks, she says.
[More from Mashable: 8% of Online Adults Use Twitter Every Day [STUDY]]
Adlington has about 50,000 followers, and looks like a normal -- albeit very fit -- person. She interacts with Twitter followers and posts training and personal updates regularly.
But that level of engagement has apparently come with a price.
[More from Mashable: ‘Crowdspeaking’ Platform Thunderclap Pushes Your Tweets to the Masses]
Adlington recently told the Associated Press the online hate is "awful" and gets under her skin.
“Even if there are 10 nice comments, you get one idiot," she says. "I can’t help the way I look … but that has nothing to do with my swimming.”
As an athlete competing in her sport's biggest event, Adlington says, "you don't want that added stress."
Adlington posted a message to her @BeckAdlington account on Thursday saying that, while she does find an Olympics break wise, she "would never" quit the social network outright. She also blocked at least one troll, posting this message Thursday after a lengthy back and forth:
On the other side of the female-Olympians-on-Twitter-spectrum, hurdler Lolo Jones has become a darling among media and fans. An attractive 29-year-old who recently spoke candidly to HBO's Real Sports about remaining a virgin until marriage, Jones has added more than 20,000 followers -- and increase of almost 40% -- over the past two weeks.
This summer’s games are being hyped as the most social Olympics ever, and the International Olympic Committee has made social engagement a high priority. Earlier this week, the IOC launched Foursquare check-ins, and last month unveiled an Olympics Athletes’ Hub to connect fans with verified athlete Facebook and Twitter feeds as well as additional digital content.
Some stringent restrictions on what fans and athletes are allowed to post from where during the event, however, has some worried the Olympics won’t end up being so social.
Who are the athletes you’ll be following on social media during the Summer Olympics? Can it be more of a distraction than a help to them? Let us know in the comments.
Image via @BeckAdlington
This story originally published on Mashable here.
No comments:
Post a Comment