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Holly Bradshaw at the 2021 Olympics
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Hannah McKay / REUTERS
Shortly after the accident, which could have meant the end of her career as a pole vaulter, the first insults rained down on Holly Bradshaw on social media.
She shouldn't dramatize, it said on Twitter about the Brit after her rod broke during a warm-up jump at the World Athletics Championships in July.
Bradshaw then hit the front edge of the landing mat uncontrollably and slid headfirst into the steel puncture box.
The consequences: an injured thigh that forced her to give up – and: malice in the net.
She only used the situation to get pity, someone wrote about her.
Another claimed that the English woman was probably too heavy, otherwise the staff would not have splintered.
"How sad does your life have to be that you feel compelled to write such comments?" she often asks herself when she reads such hostilities, Bradshaw, 31, told SPIEGEL.
She tries to ignore many insults, »but then there is this one percent of comments that hurt me and I think: It sucks that someone writes something like that.«
Around 60 discriminatory comments at the World Championships in Athletics
Many professional athletes are like Bradshaw.
At least 27 athletes were the target of discriminatory attacks on the internet at this year's World Athletics Championships in the US state of Oregon.
This is the result of a study by the world association World Athletics (WA), which was presented last week.
According to the association, more than 400,000 entries on Twitter and Instagram were searched for insults with the help of artificial intelligence.
The main focus was on English-language contributions.
The result: Around 60 discriminatory comments were identified, more than half of them were sexist or racist. In some cases, the hostilities were so severe that the association is currently deliberating whether the relevant information should be passed on to the security authorities in the respective countries. where the attacks came from.
Holly Bradshaw is shocked by the numbers.
The 27 people affected are "27 too many," she says.
Because when in doubt, a single hateful comment could have serious consequences.
This is what happened to her herself: »A few tweets that were posted about me many years ago will probably stay with me until the end of my life – and it can potentially happen to each of the other 27.«
"Everyone thinks I'm overweight"
More than ten years ago, when Bradshaw was just beginning her career as a pole vaulter, she read comments about herself on Twitter that still bother her today.
Anonymous users would have made fun of her figure and appearance, calling her fat.
Bradshaw then began to develop problems with his own body image.
For years, the world-class athlete, who has won a total of six medals at international championships, has tried to eat as few calories as possible.
She refused snacks and would rather starve than risk gaining weight.
"Everyone thinks I'm overweight," that's how she often felt, Bradshaw says of the time.
In training camps, she pretended to be afraid of water so as not to have to show herself in a bikini or swimsuit in front of other athletes.
"I was afraid of looking fat next to all these good-looking people," she says.
Bradshaw says she's learned to deal with it better now, but it's been a long road to get there.
In 2017, she considered ending her career after being attacked online again.
The reason: her sixth place at the home World Cup in London, which was disappointing for many.
Bradshaw decided to keep going and enjoyed the pinnacle of her career so far in 2021 when she won bronze at the Olympics.
Bradshaw says she considers unsubscribing almost weekly
She believes that the consequences of the insulting tweets from the beginning of her career will last her life.
She still racks her brains before uploading a photo of herself to Instagram or Twitter so as not to become a target again.
And she still doesn't feel comfortable in swimwear either.
Bradshaw says social media is "toxic," which is why she considers unsubscribing almost every week.
But so far she has rejected the idea every time.
»The pressure to post something is so damn high.
I hate that. But on the other hand, I understand how important these networks are for me as an athlete in today's society.
If you post a lot, you get a lot of fans, which in turn attracts sponsors that you can make money from.«
She advises young athletes to consistently remove negative comments on social media.
"I report such posts directly, delete them and block the person," says Bradshaw.
“Personally, it helps me a lot when people like that no longer appear in my Twitter feed.” This makes it easier for her to reflect on what brought her to the top of the world: the love of sports.