British Olympian quits Twitter after ‘threatening’ messages
By Sam Laird From Mashable
Of the thousands of athletes competing at the 2014 Winter Olympics, British speed skater Elise Christie has had arguably the worst experience in Sochi.
Christie finished second to earn a silver medal in the 500-meter women’s short track speed skating race on Thursday — or so she thought. Immediately after the race, she was demoted to eighth place for a crash that happened earlier in the contest, amid doubts about who was actually at fault in the collision. Then, on Saturday, Christie was disqualified from the women’s 1,500-meter race for the blade of her skate missing a boundary line on the track by a single centimeter.
Then, to top things off, it was also revealed on Saturday that Christie had closed her Twitter account because of vile, “threatening” messages from angry so-called fans.
The specifics of those “threats” were not revealed and, at time of this writing, the British Olympic team had not responded to Mashable’s request for comment. The Guardian’s Owen Gibson reported on Saturday morning that Christie decided to leave Twitter after discussing her situation with British officials.
“I have had a few people threatening me, cyber bullying basically,” Christie told BBC on Saturday.
On top of her difficult penalty in the 500-meter race — after which a crying Christie was consoled by coaches — the bullying proved too much to handle.
“I have had to deal with abuse on the Internet as well,” she told the BBC. “So, I have found it hard.”
Christie is not the first athlete to deal with harsh abuse on Twitter while representing Great Britain at the games. Before the 2012 Summer Olympics, swimmer Rebecca Adlington announced a games-long break from the social platform because of trolls who denigrated her appearance. The same year, diver Tom Daley outed a Twitter troll who sent a hateful message about his recently-deceased father. That user was later arrested by British law enforcement officials.
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