![]() ![]() “The culture has been revealed over the last few years. She believes that Biles’ decision not to compete on Tuesday night is evidence of that. Monckton said the sport has significantly changed for the better as a consequence. However, the Olympics is not any competition and gymnastics is not like most sports. It is increasingly accepted in many sports that mental health is a legitimate reason for an athlete not to compete, illustrated powerfully by Naomi Osaka’s decision to withdraw from the French Open and sit out Wimbledon. ![]() ![]() Jamaican gymnast Danusia Francis, who leaves Tokyo as an Olympian despite tearing a cruciate ligament in training on the day of the opening ceremony, tweeted that Biles, not for the first time, had changed the game: “Don’t know about you but I think Simone just empowered everyone to put their mental well-being above everything else.” We applaud your decision to prioritise your mental wellness over all else, and offer you the full support and resources of our Team USA community as you navigate the journey ahead.” Proud of who you are as a person, teammate and athlete. For instance, just 4% of original tweets that tagged directly used the terms “quit,” “quitter” or “quitting.US Olympic and Paralympic Committee chief executive Sarah Hirshland, backed Biles’ decision not to compete. Even so, these “distinctive” terms were relatively rare. These terms were up to 52 times more prevalent in tweets mentioning Biles than in those mentioning other athletes. Some of the most distinctive terms included supportive phrases like “love support,” “courage” and “brave.” Other phrases (such as “quitter” or “quitting”) referenced her withdrawal in a more negative light, while others referred to issues like “mental health” and “abuse.” Many of these terms appear to be in reference to Biles’ decision to withdraw from competition in some events. Original tweets and replies mentioning Biles’ handle during the Games tended to disproportionately use certain terms and phrases relative to tweets that mentioned other Olympians. (It’s worth noting that many individual tweets mentioned multiple athletes.) Mentions of Biles included expressions of support as well as discussion of her withdrawal from competition Biles was even more omnipresent from July 27-29, when her handle accounted for 64% of all athlete mentions. Olympians during the Games, was referenced in more than 650,000 tweets, or 31% of the total. Of the more than 2.1 million tweets that mentioned the handle of any U.S. One athlete in particular – gymnast Simone Biles – stood out above all others in the number of times she was mentioned by the Twitter audience. Simone Biles alone made up 31% of all mentions of U.S. Nearly a third (31%) of all athlete mentions occurred during the three days of July 27-29, a period that included the women’s team and individual gymnastics finals and swimmer Katie Ledecky winning the gold medal in the 1,500-meter freestyle. These mentions were especially concentrated on a few key dates. The vast majority (90%) of those athlete accounts were mentioned at least once during that time. Olympians in more than 2.1 million tweets. 8 – more than 900,000 different Twitter accounts directly mentioned the handles of U.S. 9, 2021 – the Games themselves, postponed from the year before, were held July 23 to Aug. And 438 of them (73% of the total) included a Twitter handle in their athlete profile. Olympians more than 2.1 million times during the GamesĪll told, 598 athletes were listed on the Team USA website at the start of the Games. Twitter users directly mentioned the accounts of U.S. Read the methodology for more on how this analysis was conducted. Olympians via their Twitter handles (such as or and not more generic references (such as “Kevin Durant,” “KD” or “Biles”). 9 that mentioned any of these 438 Twitter handles using the Gnip Historical PowerTrack API, a searchable archive of all publicly available tweets. This analysis focuses on direct mentions of U.S. Researchers collected all tweets posted between July 21 and Aug. All athletes (including a small number of alternates) who were listed and had a Twitter handle at that time were included in the analysis. To conduct this analysis, we collected every athlete Twitter handle listed on the official Team USA page as of approximately July 26, 2021. This analysis looks at how users of one major social platform – Twitter – used the site to tag Team USA athletes during the recently completed 2020 Olympic Games. Most social media sites allow users to directly engage with other users by tagging their handles or screen names in their posts. ![]()
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