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≡ IOC PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ≡
“There’s a huge element of social media that’s actually an act of cowardice.”
That’s World Athletics President Sebastian Coe (GBR), speaking on the sidelines of last weekend’s European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn (NED), ripping the leadership of the large social-media platforms Facebook and Instagram (Mark Zuckerberg) and X (Elon Musk) for unacceptable abuse of women.
He told reporters his message to both leaders was simple:
“Sort this out. This is just unacceptable. We’ve got to do a whole heap more.
“I’ve seen the distress this has caused. It’s pond life and I’ve spoken to many of the female athletes about it. Some of the stuff, you just want to cry listening to it.
“I remember an athlete saying to me, ‘I just don’t care anymore.’ And I said, ‘You should care, you should be really angry about this stuff.’
“What you don’t want is people just thinking you get to the highest level in female sport and it’s sort of what happens. We should not accept it as being sort of standard practice.
‘It’s not new, but there’s just more of it. There’s a huge element of social media that’s actually an act of cowardice. It’s saying stuff that you can probably say because it’s anonymous and you wouldn’t say it to somebody’s face.”
He pointed to the 19 February stalking incident against British tennis player Emma Raducanu at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, where she noticed a man sitting in a lower row who had previously accosted her. He was removed from the event, but Raducanu was upset and eventually lost her match to Czech Karolina Muchova. Coe commented:
“It’s vital that women feel that sport is a safe space. You cannot have young athletes thinking the second you get public exposure that this comes at you like a waterfall of horror.”
Coe said he would like to meet with Musk and Zuckerberg directly, explaining:
“We have to talk. You’ve got the technology there. AI can be really helpful in driving some of this stuff out.”
World Athletics has been involved in identifying and fighting online abuse for several years and published a study across four years in December, with data from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in 2021, the 2022 and 2023 World Championships and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. In those cases, X (ex-Twitter) was the predominant avenue for abuse; for Tokyo, 63% of all abusive comments were directed at women and 59% at the 2022 World Championships.
Coe’s comments in The Netherlands follows his visit to Kenya last week, where he praised progress on anti-doping efforts, a huge problem in Kenyan sport, but also met with Kenyan leaders about the need for raised awareness and prevention of gender-based violence against women. The horrific deaths of three-time World Cross Country gold medalist Agnes Tirop (KEN) and 2021 World Mountain Running champion Rebecca Cheptegei (UGA) have highlighted the need for action.
The Kenyan government has begun an effort to combat the issue, noting female stars are instant targets due to their financial success in running, a lack of accountability on behalf of coaches and a need for better reporting systems. Said Coe, noting the importance of athletics in the country:
“There are many ways we at World Athletics can provide support, raise awareness and lend our skills, which we will be doing in the coming weeks and months as the Kenyan Government, together with Athletics Kenya, develop the report recommendations into concrete plans.”
Observed: These are not new areas of comment for Coe, who has been a strident protector of women’s sport for years, with World Athletics in the lead in actions to maintain women’s competitions against athletes with advantages, either transgenders, or those with “differences in sex development,” such as two-time South African women’s 800 m Olympic champion Caster Semenya.
But they are especially newsworthy now, in the final 10 days before the International Olympic Committee vote on a new President, on 20 March in Greece. Protection of women’s sport is already seen as a winning issue, with 48 female IOC members among the total of 109. But none of the contenders have been as outspoken on the issue over time as Coe has.
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