How athletes struck TikTok gold at the Olympics – while others avoid the distraction

This summer’s Olympic games has been dubbed the ‘TikTok Olympics’.

Why? Because of the huge volume of behind-the-scenes content being produced by the athletes themselves, which is then shared and consumed by TikTok’s one billion monthly users.

Ilona Maher is among the athletes to have struck TikTok gold. The rugby player is a member of the United States’ sevens team (who won bronze by beating Australia 14-12) and has become a social media sensation in Paris.

The 27-year-old’s funny and authentic videos have seen her overall views and followers skyrocket within days. She now has 5.1million followers across TikTok and Instagram combined.

From clips of her swapping pin badges with gymnastics queen Simone Biles, jokingly mentioning pickleball when getting a picture with tennis superstar Coco Gauff, to getting former Philadelphia Eagles centre Jason Kelce to declare himself a fan of USA women’s rugby.

Maher, who is now the most followed rugby player on Instagram, has also used her platform to share body-positive messages which have helped her connect with a large audience far beyond her sport, or even sport in general.

“It is really important to have a profile and a profile for our sport,” Maher said. “It’s about building the brand. We are female rugby players — we’re not getting million-dollar contracts, we’re not getting paid the money that we should be.

“Me and my friends are keen on getting the sport out there and getting us noticed. It’s important in the U.S. where so much attention is on other sports. And I think it’s just about showing the personality that the women have. The game is very strong, not just for men, but for women too.”

In one video she proudly says: “All body types can be Olympians.”

She first gained a following doing the same thing at Tokyo 2020, back when it was more of a rarity for athletes to post to social media during the two-week multi-sport event.

“There were a few athletes whose posts did very well but I don’t remember seeing anywhere near as much content as we are now,” Ella Jerman, a social media consultant at Ten Toes, tells The Athletic.

Jerman says this is because the International Olympic Committee (IOC) relaxed their social media policy. In Rio de Janeiro in 2016, athletes could only post photos — before sharing audio or video they needed IOC approval.

At the games in Tokyo, athletes were given permission to post videos but not from the opening or closing ceremonies or in competition areas. “In Tokyo, they could film in the Olympic Village but now they can do opening and closing ceremonies, training venues and competition venues up to an hour before competing,” says Jerman.

“I think (the popularity of social media use in Paris) is down to the fact the athletes have been given this freedom. Secondly, it is maybe just a bit of copycat culture. The more athletes I’ve seen do these videos, the more seem to be getting involved.”

Explaining what is driving the phenomenon, Maher said: “People just seem to love anything that’s connected to the Olympics.”

@ilonamaher Seen yourself in these athletes @paris2024 @Team USA @Olympics #olympics ♬ original sound – Ilona Maher

Australia women’s football team goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold found that out when a video she shared to TikTok was viewed more than 42million times. In a seven-second clip, Arnold and her team-mate Alanna Kennedy look unimpressed with their Olympic uniform dresses. It proved a massive hit on the platform.

“For female athletes, it feels like they are competing at an event whose audience, I think it would be fair to say, isn’t as contained as it would be if it was a women’s sport event,” Jerman says. “This may in turn enhance the reach of what they’re doing because it’s coming under the hashtags and the umbrella of Olympics content.

“Mackenzie Arnold, who is a big name in the women’s game, getting 42million views when, globally, people who aren’t women’s football fans might not be familiar with her is a good example of the Olympic reach.”

To give an idea of the numbers involved, by August 1, the hashtag ‘Olympics’ had been used in 1.2 million posts on TikTok.

“In the first five days of Paris 2024, we had 233,440 creators who made content using that hashtag. That is an 822 per cent increase on Tokyo,” says Rollo Goldstaub, the app’s head of global sports partnerships.

“We knew when we started working on this it had all the right ingredients to be the biggest content moment in TikTok’s history. We knew that’s how important the Olympics are.

“We’ve been working with the entire Olympic family on how they use TikTok, working with every National Olympic Committee in each market and working with athletes and broadcasters.”

Goldstaub adds: “It’s like the opening of a window into their lives and their experience of being Olympians. One comment which really made me laugh was, ‘I’m going to start training now so I can be in the athletes’ village in four years’ time’. In the past, it might have just been about the chance of winning gold. Now it’s also the chance to be part of what they’re discovering on TikTok.”

Among those discoveries are the now legendary chocolate muffins. Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen shared his love of the gooey muffins available to athletes in the village and it rapidly became a trending topic. Now a whole host of Olympians including British sprinter Lina Nielsen and Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjostrom have gone viral when detailing their own search for the elusive muffins.

Michaela Blyde’s New Zealand rugby sevens team-mates filmed her journey from being starstruck by Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to running barefoot up a Parisian road to meet her. Blyde’s chaotically brilliant fangirling was returned when Fraser-Pryce showed up at the Stade de France to support New Zealand on their way to becoming Olympic champions.

@michaelablyde Na stop. I just met my idol. The QUEEN of sprinting 👑 in bare feet, a stained shirt and oversized pants. My family would be so proud. #olympics2024 #paris2024 #jamaica #trackandfield #shellyannfraserpryce ♬ original sound – Michaela Blyde

What is it about TikTok in particular that this generation of athletes are finding to be such a draw?

“For a lot of them, they’ve grown up with TikTok as viewers and fans of content,” Goldstaub says of the app, which launched in 2016. “And then also the potential and opportunities they can find uploading on TikTok. The discoverability and ability to reach large audiences early which people can find as a brand new uploader. People have the ability to grow channels very fast which isn’t always the case elsewhere.”

For Maher, she has experienced massive growth across platforms.

“She doubled her Instagram following in a week, which is absolutely crazy,” Jerman says. “Without the Olympics, that just wouldn’t usually be possible for a rugby sevens player. The Olympics is an empowering space for female athletes and those who compete in lesser known sports.

“It opens female athletes in particular up to a broader and largely accepting audience as well. There are those dinosaurs out there who will attack something when it’s framed under the banner of women’s sport. But under the Olympics that feels like it happens less.

“It feels like a space where women can unashamedly have their voice, be authentic and show content without people tearing it down. I can’t say for sure but it does seem to be the case that women are less likely to be torn down when they are being shown on a level par with men’s events like in tennis.”

Not everyone will be scrolling through social media during the Olympics and not every athlete will be posting content either. Great Britain women’s hockey player Tess Howard confirmed the team have taken a collective break from social media during the tournament.

“It’s all about creating that bubble and making sure that we are focused on this two-week period that happens once every four years. It’s a really special time,” Howard said after her side defeated the USA 5-2 in their Pool B meeting.

“We’re in that together — we don’t have any distractions. We don’t see any comments that we might… you know, if we didn’t win our first two games things may have thrown us off, but we stayed really close together.”

Abigail Tamer, who played for team USA in the loss, also discussed her team’s self-imposed social media ban.

“It just helps us to stay present,” Tamer said. “We’ve been talking a lot about that, especially after we ended up in the Olympics where it’s so big and on a world scale. It helped us ignore some of the outside distractions and focus on what’s in front of us.”

While a lot of athletes have decided that avoiding the social media spotlight is the way to go, there are many others who have taken the public with them on their search for medals (and muffins) and found global fame along the way.

The result is access like never before, with TikTok a podium for athletes not ordinarily in the spotlight. For women in particular, it has felt like a win.

(Header design: Dan Goldfarb, photos: Getty Images)