- Ollie Hoare copped vicious online abuse throughout Paris Games
- 1500m runner says the comments affected his performance
- Says he should have deleted Instagram before the Olympics
Middle distance runner Ollie Hoare has revealed the shocking abuse he’s received on social media during the Paris Games, saying he should have deleted Instagram before the event.
The Commonwealth Games gold medallist finished third last in the heat for the 1500m – and also had a disappointing race in the next round.
His Paris Olympics campaign is now over and he says he felt the brunt of online abuse after his heat.
‘That (heat) was a terrible race and I’ve been abused on Instagram so I did delete it,’ he said.
‘I probably should have deleted Instagram before I went into the village but I miss my friends. It’s an easy way of communication when you’re not living at home.
‘So that was tough. I think that kind of affected me a little bit, I haven’t slept great.’
The track star revealed that he was receiving direct messages from trolls as well as horrible comments on photos.
‘If I have a bad race or if something goes wrong there could be a possibility of that happening and I have to just tell it to piss off,’ he said.
Middle distance runner Ollie Hoare says he’s received online abuse at the Paris Games
Hoare says he regrets not deleting Instagram before the Olympics kicked off
‘They don’t know that I couldn’t walk in November, they don’t know what a lot of athletes go through and sometimes it’s their day, sometimes it isn’t.’
Former Aussie swim star James Magnussen said he was surprised Hoare was using social media before his race.
‘I’ll give you a tip, the week of your race, you log-out and give your manager the log-ins. They post the content and read and reply to any of the comments,’ Magnussen said on the Matty & The Missile podcast.
‘To be on social media reading comments from others, getting rattled on the day of your race, that’s something only a really young or inexperienced athlete would do.
Hoare said he received direct messages from online trolls
‘I’m super surprised that’s (happened) here.’
Meanwhile, Aussie Bree Masters’ exciting 100m campaign ended at the semi-final stage against a stacked field including winner Julien Alfred from St Lucia (10.84) and reigning world champ Sha’Carri Richardson (10.89).
Masters was seventh in the semi in 11.34, marginally slower than she ran in the opening round.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk