By Lori Ewing
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – Emma Raducanu described being unable to see the ball through her tears after spotting a stalker at a match last month, and the image of the British tennis player taking refuge behind the umpire’s chair encapsulated the darker side of women’s sports.
On the eve of International Women’s Day, women’s sports are celebrating greater participation numbers and an unprecedented surge in popularity, but the rise of social media exposure and increased visibility have made women athletes more vulnerable than ever, experts say.
“People wanting photographs, people coming up close to (athletes), wanting to put their hands on them — you’ve got a different dynamic with sports stars,” safeguarding consultant Marcella Leonard told Reuters. “There’s an expectation that they should be nice to the public, they should allow the public to touch them, they should allow them to get photographs.
“That gives a stalker the permission to do what they want to do and that’s a really serious issue.”
Although one-in-five women in the UK will experience stalking at some point in their lives, there are no scientific studies around the stalking of athletes, Canadian forensic psychologist Sarah Coupland said in an interview with Reuters.
Between 35% and 75% of people in the public eye such as politicians and television presenters, however, experience stalking, she added.
The 22-year-old Raducanu had not yet been born when world number one Monica Seles was stabbed in the back by a fan in a 1993 on-court attack that brought the risk of stalking starkly into the public eye.
MULTIPLE STALKING INCIDENTS
Despite it being an under-reported crime, there have been countless stalking stories since, including several in the past few months.
Last month, Michael Lewis was arrested on a felony stalking charge after he repeatedly sent threats and sexually violent messages to Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark. The 55-year-old told Clark he had been “driving around your house three times a day.”
In December, 40-year-old Robert Cole Parmalee pleaded guilty to charges of stalking University of Connecticut basketball player Paige Bueckers. Parmalee had posted on social media that he was travelling to Connecticut to propose to the player and to get her expelled from the university.
Last month, a distressed Olympic 200 metres champion Gabby Thomas posted on TikTok about her frightening experiences with a group of men who had stalked her at several airports. Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee and tennis player Coco Gauff were among the athletes who replied to her post, saying they had similar experiences while travelling.
Social media gives female athletes more exposure than ever, which is a double-edged sword as it opens up the possibility for fans to develop “parasocial relationships,” said Coupland.
“You’ve got a person who’s consuming a piece of media, and they start to form a one-way relationship,” she said. “The relationship is viewed (by the fan) as mutual, even though the (athlete) has no way of knowing that the person is actually there.”
BRAND EXPOSURE
Since athletes with large followings can amplify brands, sport sponsorship contracts usually require athletes to post on their social media platforms.
Stephanie Hilborne, the chief executive of the UK-based Women in Sport charity, said sponsors and sport organizations need to stop pressuring female athletes.
“It’s just so wrong. The opposite should be true. Female athletes should be protected more and advised to do less exposing of their personal life,” she told Reuters.
“It’s almost like as part of the mechanism for righting the wrongs of the past, where no investment or sponsorship were made in women’s sport, women are expected to expose themselves to additional risk. It couldn’t be more wrong, could it?”
The majority of stalking results in psychological harm, Coupland said.
“Anxiety, potentially post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, depression, changes in functioning, ability to go to work, or in athletes’ performance,” she said.
Raducanu told reporters she “could barely breathe” when she spotted her stalker, who had previously approached her in Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Doha, in the crowd at the Dubai Championships.
It was not her first experience. Three years ago, another stalker Amrit Magar was given a five-year restraining order after he turned up at Raducanu’s London house on several occasions, leaving unwanted gifts and cards and stealing personal items.
Some sport federations are ramping up their online protection of athletes. World Athletics recently offered 25 athletes year-round AI protection on their social media platforms after they were targeted by cyber bullies.
The Premier League and Women’s Super League have been monitoring players’ social media accounts for several years.
(Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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