"These things that have happened in the past have made me no longer able to trust anyone, not even my own shadow."
When Eliud Kipchoge choked up these words, it was hard to imagine that the soon-to-be-40-year-old "marathon king" could only embark on a depressing and heavy journey to defend his title at the Paris Olympics.
Recently, Kenya and Ethiopia announced their respective Olympic marathon lists, including Kipchoge and Bekele, and their competition together will make the men's marathon in Paris another "battle of the century". However, compared to Bekele, Kipchoge, who aims to complete the feat of "three consecutive championships", is not in a good state of preparation, and the main problem is the psychological pressure and mental disturbance caused by online violence.
In an exclusive interview with the British media BBC, Kipchoge publicly responded for the first time to the turmoil caused by the unexpected death of his fellow Kenyan Kelvin Kiptum, and also talked about the online violence he has experienced in the past few months and the huge impact of social media on athletes.
In the whirlpool of cyberviolence, the most painful thing is that the family is also affected
Kipchoge himself did not expect that after the unexpected death of his compatriot Kiptum, he would be associated with the car accident and could not escape the suspicion of the outside world for a long time.
Kipchoge was already shocked and frustrated in an interview with the BBC when it came to the rumours that continued to simmer on social media: "I can't believe that people would say on social media that 'Erud Kipchoge has a direct link to the boy's death'. ”
In fact, before the crash, the 24-year-old Kiptum had rewritten Kipchoge's marathon record in just three official races, running 2 hours and 35 seconds at the Chicago Marathon last October. Not only that, according to the people related to the Kiptum team, the "marathon future star" originally planned to complete the "Break 2" at the Rotterdam Marathon in April and hit the limit of human endurance.
However, a car accident made the marathon story of the "future star" as fleeting as a shooting star. But in the aftermath of the incident, a wave of conspiracy theories on the Internet poured into Kipchoge. They have no basis for believing that Kipchoge was jealous of Kiptum's rise and orchestrated a car accident on the grounds of the ironic fact that Kipchoge did not congratulate him in time when he broke the record, and only tweeted his condolences after his death.
Kipchoge has not responded much in the past few months, however, radical netizens have begun to abuse him and even throw "death threats" at him and his family.
"I received a lot of threatening messages saying that they were going to burn down my training camp, burn down the property I invested in, burn down my house and even hurt my family." When Kipchoge saw the abuse and rumours, he instinctively checked the safety of his family: "I don't report it because my life is threatened, but I started calling a lot of family and friends frequently, telling them to be extra careful and cautious." ”
Kipchoge revealed that during this time, he has started to pick up and drop off children to and from school, and they are no longer allowed to ride their bikes around after school.
"My daughter is in boarding school, which is a good thing for her because she is not exposed to these remarks on social media. But for my sons, it was too cruel for them to hear the words 'your dad killed someone.' ”
Kipchoge was even sadder because her mother was now worried about herself, and he couldn't help but choke up and cry when he talked about his mother: "The most devastating moment for me was when I called my mother and she told me, 'You have to take care of yourself, there are many things to come'." ”
"Malicious remarks will not change my determination to pursue a triple crown"
Kipchoge himself said that he was born in a small place in the middle of nowhere, and that he did not have close contact with the outside world, and that the circulation of information was even more inhibited, but even so, his mother knew about the online violence he had experienced, "which made me really aware of the impact of social media, which is almost pervasive." ”
On the one hand, Kipchoge didn't want his family to worry too much about him; But on the other hand, when he was working hard to prepare for the Olympics in the training camp, and at the same time had to silently endure online violence, his mother's comfort and encouragement became his motivation to move forward. "My mother's care and encouragement during that difficult time really gave me great courage and helped me get through those dark days."
Kipchoge's use of "dark days" to describe his life over the past few months speaks volumes about the unimaginable difficulties he has experienced mentally and physically. At the Tokyo Marathon in March this year, his performance on the track can already be glimpsed.
Tokyo can be regarded as a blessed land for Kipchoge. He won the marathon gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, becoming only the third athlete in sports history to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in the men's marathon. Later, at the 2022 Tokyo Marathon, he won the championship in 2:02:40 and set a new course record. However, on his third trip to Tokyo, he was in a rare slump less than halfway through the game, finishing 10th and finishing his worst career ranking.
Now, Kipchoge revealed what was going on outside the Tokyo Marathon, and after arriving in Tokyo, he tossed and turned for three days without sleep, surrounded by malicious comments from all over the world.
Even as Kipchoge told these stories, no one but himself could empathize with what happened to him. A very important part of his belief in being able to survive the low point of his life also comes from his love and dedication to running.
"If I delete my account, it means I'm hiding something, but I'm not doing anything wrong and I'm going to keep my account." In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Gipchoge revealed that his team had hoped that he would stay away from social media for a while after the cyberbullying, but he said he had never considered deleting his account. At the same time, Kipchoge decided to stick with his original training plan, not wanting to go against his original intention of running.
"There is no need to change the training ground." "Instead of training in the gym, we go outside to run and come and go freely on the streets," he explains. ”
Kipchoge began to return to the training ground and adjust his mentality. "It's important to pick yourself up and go straight to your goal," said the 40-year-old "King of Marathons" with a firm and clear purpose, which is to achieve a "triple Olympic marathon title", and "malicious comments on social media will not affect his determination to pursue a triple crown." ”
The IOC is also working hard to combat online violence
After experiencing such online violence and death threats, Kipchoge admitted that he believes social media companies are "not doing enough" to combat verbal abuse on platforms.
"These people hiding behind the network are wantonly posting malicious remarks, but it takes a long time to deal with them before they are reported and banned." "The relevant authorities should improve and strengthen supervision and rectification measures, and if there are accounts that deliberately spread rumors or spread false information, they should be immediately banned," Kipchoge said. In the long run, netizens will reach a consensus to abide by the rules of the Internet and always pay attention to restricting their speech. ”
It is worth mentioning that just a few days ago, the IOC posted on its official website that the IOC will use a new artificial intelligence monitoring service at the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games to identify and flag malicious information in real time and report it to social media companies for quick and effective processing, aiming to "actively and massively respond" to online abuse during the Olympic Games to protect athletes and officials from online violence.
"I think that's the right direction." Kipchoge strongly agrees with the use of this technology, and he also spoke of the IOC's efforts: "The IOC is playing their role and fulfilling their function to protect the safety of athletes. ”
But for Kipchoge, it is too late to undo or mitigate the emotional scars caused by online violence. "These things happened that made me no longer trust anyone, not even my own shadow." Kipchoge's mood was a little low when he said this, "I am really saddened when I hear these trumped-up charges even from my compatriots, from my training partners, from those I come into contact with on a daily basis. ”
When verbal violence spreads from the Internet to real life, and even affects the way of thinking of people around them, this kind of harm is the most terrifying. Kipchoge also went through this phase: "I now really understand the meaning of a phased friendship, which unfortunately happened when I had been in sports for more than 20 years. ”
In fact, what happened to Kipchoge is just a microcosm of today's online age, where many athletes around the world, including China, are still battling online violence.
Kipchoge, on the other hand, hopes that through his own story, more people will be rational and objective. He will keep running, he will continue to stand on the Olympic stage, and whether or not he can complete the feat of "three consecutive titles" in the end, Kipchoge will continue to run under pressure.
Source: The Paper
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