High-performance sport no longer faces challenges only on the field of play. Today, athletes, coaches, officials and sports administrators must also deal with an increasingly complex reality: online abuse. Social media, while allowing direct connections between athletes and fans, has also become a space where threats, insults and harassment campaigns can flourish, affecting the psychological well-being of those who are part of the Olympic Movement.
As part of Safe Sport Day, observed every August 8, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) released the report Online Abuse and Sport, a document that reveals the scale of this phenomenon based on the experience of its Cyber Abuse Protection Service (CAPS). The analysis, carried out during the Olympic Games Paris 2024 and the Olympic Winter Games Milan-Cortina 2026, not only highlights the magnitude of the problem but also demonstrates how technology and specialist expertise can become essential tools to protect people across the sporting community.
A system that monitored millions of posts to protect athletes
During both editions of the Olympic Games, CAPS operated around the clock, seven days a week. Its approach combined artificial intelligence with reviews conducted by specialist analysts to monitor content published on social media and detect potentially abusive messages directed at athletes, coaches, teams and officials. The goal was not only to identify offensive comments but also to respond quickly to situations that could pose a risk to the safety and well-being of those affected.
The results illustrate the enormous scale of the challenge. The service analyzed nearly 4.3 million posts and comments directed at more than 26,000 social media profiles. During Paris 2024, around 20,000 accounts in 45 languages were monitored, while more than 6,000 accounts in 56 languages were tracked during Milan-Cortina 2026. Artificial intelligence flagged approximately 242,000 suspicious posts for review, which were then assessed by specialists. Following that process, nearly 24,700 messages were confirmed as online abuse, originating from around 18,900 unique accounts.
Artificial intelligence, human support and a coordinated response
The report emphasizes that technology was only one part of the process. Once a message had been identified and confirmed as abusive, a coordinated response protocol was activated across different IOC teams. The cybersecurity unit contacted the relevant platform to address the content, investigated the source of the abuse and prepared reports to help the affected individual assess the available courses of action. At the same time, the IOC Safeguarding team intervened in the most serious cases, prioritizing those requiring urgent attention and providing psychosocial support whenever necessary.
The implementation of CAPS at Paris 2024 marked a milestone by becoming the largest initiative ever developed by a sports organization to combat online abuse. Its subsequent expansion to the Olympic Winter Games Milan-Cortina 2026 enabled the system to be refined and its reach extended, strengthening a strategy designed to respond to an issue that is becoming increasingly prevalent in modern sport. Beyond the figures, the report shows that protecting athletes no longer depends solely on measures implemented inside sports venues, but also on the ability to ensure safer digital spaces.
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