These Olympic Games are the first real global event within the reach of social networks: up Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other mobile applications, it is actually possible to follow every race and every moment of the event, in a sort of universal sharing. If in Sydney Internet connections were few and slow, if in Athens there were only a handful of smartphones, if in Beijing the various social networks were only taking their first steps, today the way of following sport has changed, people want share the experience, comment, interact, the era of the passive spectator is over, this is the era of Twitter.
Already months earlier, the London appointment had been labeled as the first truly social Olympics, thesis supported above all after the International Olympic Committee had advertised with great fanfare the "Olympic knot" of Twitter: that is the agreement between the social network with the American television broadcaster NBC to be the official narrator of the Games, through a knot created to collect and display the tweets of athletes, their supporters and famous TV personalities, as well as the creation of an official account of the event and other accounts dedicated to each individual discipline, without forgetting the possibility of checking all the results in real time on a dedicated website (www.london2012.com).
The incredible boom on various social networks took place during the opening ceremony, which with almost 5 million shares has become the most shared sports and entertainment event ever, doubling the result recorded during the last Super Bowl, as regards Twitter, the record number of 15 messages per second was obviously smashed occurred during the final of the last European football championship, overcoming the risk of a possible blackout due to simultaneous overuse, an episode that had occurred a few days earlier and which had made it inaccessible to the world for two hours, unscathed.
Speaking of the inaugural ceremony, despite the repeated appeals of the director in charge of the event, the famous Danny Boyle, not to spoil the surprise, photos and comments were already posted a few days earlier that revealed what was going to happen. With the drafts of social networks there are no more secrets, the director was not listened to in the slightest and what he called "surprise" was abundantly ruined, finding himself with his creation online hours earlier. To prevent this possibility a hashtag was created to avoid problems (#savethesurprise), but the joke was that the approximately 70 volunteers, insiders, relatives and friends who had attended the rehearsals, took advantage of that ashtag by unleashing themselves on various social networks, posting enthusiastic tweets with images, stories and protagonists of what all the world would have seen a few hours later (among other things, part of the beautiful ceremony was dedicated to the web and the new social networks). In the end, however, Boyle thanked everyone for the great compliments received during the evening, and of course he did it using a Twitter post!
Twitter is also present in the scenography of one of the most characteristic places in the city: in fact every evening the London Eye comes alive and lights up with lights whose colors are determined by the feelings of the spectators, ie from what people tweeted about the Games throughout the day.
The IOC, in the days preceding the arrival of the athletes, had invited them, once the competitions had begun, to use the network to communicate first-hand their life inside the Olympic village, their impressions, fears and hopes, but without exaggerating, in fact in a official announcement was underlined as activities on social media, websites or websites should have been in a personal capacity, in diary format and in first person, without reporting news of the competitions or comments on the activities of the other participants. The athletes didn't have to repeat it twice and as soon as they landed in London, even before the official opening, they began to tell and share anything and any time of the day, starting a trend that with the passing of the days gave an increasingly particular imprint on these games. The various portals were immediately flooded with snapshots of the life of the athletes, passing from the photos of the Rebecca Adlington's Messy Room, to the too short beds of Argentine rowers, from uncomfortable mattress by Bolt until learning of the Australian delegation lost in London because the driver was unable to use the navigator, all news certainly not vital for the rest of humanity. A curious fact concerns the expedition of the Cuban national team: in defiance of censorship and the special permits imposed by the Havana government, all the athletes, who are subject to strong restrictions on the use of the web at home, as soon as they arrive in the Olympic village they took siege to the Internet room and it didn't seem real to them to be able to spend hours and hours on the various sites, primarily the usual social networks.
However the growth of the Twitter craze has been exponential: in 2008 the site processed about 27 messages per second, today 27 thousand, users are more than 500 million, people like this microblog because it's light and fast and allows you to express your thoughts instantly, within the fateful 140 characters.
As far as the Italian shipment is concerned, the rules set up on the eve were much more restrictive than the indications given in general. In fact, CONI, however at the suggestion of the Cio, has decided that during these two weeks its athletes cannot share their exploits, moods and greetings on the two major social networks, Facebook and Twitter. to avoid that the various declarations do not influence the bets, but also to not violate the image rights of the event, anyone who does not comply with this will face a fine of 100 thousand euros (these were the wishes of the day before, but given how the first ten days went, either Coni collected several thousand euros or the situation immediately proved unmanageable); furthermore, even journalists in theory cannot post photographs of the athletes on their pages. This decision on the eve has left many athletes speechless, who use social media to communicate with family and friends especially when they are engaged in such important competitions, so many of them greeted their "friends" via Twitter or Facebook: the swimmer Luca Dotto wrote "we feel at the end of the Olympics" (except then reappear in the dispute with Magnini), the gymnast Carlotta Ferlito "the Olympic silence begins and I will no longer be able to update you" and Flavia Pennetta greeted her fans "I will no longer be able to write to you, at least that's what they told me".
There have been millions of messages exchanged through social networks so far, 20 tweets per second have been calculated, with more than a thousand protagonist athletes and half a billion people who shared information, but there were however many inconveniences created by the posts made by sportsmen and ordinary people during competitions. In fact, the flow of messages was so high - the initial ceremony generated, for example, ten million tweets - as to cause interference to GPS services or disturbances of various kinds to the communication systems of television networks, so much so that the British government has even asked do not exaggerate with messages during the course of the competitions, but to limit yourself to strictly necessary cases. Added to this are the controversies created by athletes for the most diverse reasons, from racist comments to harsh outbursts and excessive criticism, not to mention the fiery protests generated by a rule that forbids participants to disseminate images and posts with their own faces and names linked to personal sponsors, so if the numbers are undoubtedly on the side of social networks, the reality of things turns out to be quite different.
One of the most against these limitations turned out to be American Olympic 110m hurdles champion Dawn Harper. The sprinter has launched the revolt on Twitter by posting a photo of himself with a plastered mouth, becoming the champion not only of the US delegation but of all the athletes disappointed by the decisions taken by the IOC without being consulted, arguing that the Olympics contain many stories that should be told and shared, to bring people together in the world.
The first mini "case" concerned the British national football team in the days before the start of the tournament: in fact, Tottenham player Danny Rose boasted of having won 700 pounds in a poker challenge with his teammates, but the "bravado" was not liked by tabloids and fans. “In just 10 minutes I'm going to bed with £700, it was a really great night” by adding a photo showing stacks of chips and playing cards with the Union Jack and the words “come on GB”, this has put the player on the net. However, the fans didn't like it at all and chirped furiously about being ashamed of throwing away the money like this, since gambling is certainly not in line with the Olympic spirit, suggesting that the money won be donated to charity. They also added that by wasting all that money, also considering that most of the other athletes earn a cent of their salaries, they favored giving footballers a bad image and agreed with those who speak ill of the category, risking, among other things, undermining team spirit. Given the situation, shortly after Rose had to promptly remove the message.
Speaking of more serious, indeed serious, things are two athletes who had to say goodbye to the Games for having written messages deemed racist on Twitter. The first to be purged was the Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou: the under23 triples champion didn't even have time to leave for the Games. The tweet that cost her the Olympic trip tackled a sad topical issue with extraordinary cynicism and read: “With so many Africans in Greece West Nile mosquitoes will at least be able to eat food from home”. Two apology posts by the athlete followed this, to say the least, unfortunate joke, but the Greek committee was rightly inflexible and left it at home. The second to stumble on Twitter was the footballer of Palermo and Switzerland Michel Morganella, who, at the end of the match lost by his national team against South Korea, had defined the opponents "gang of mentally retarded" and adding "go get yourself burned". He too tried to make up for it by writing a letter of apology, sorry for what he had done and justifying himself with the fact that he had let himself get carried away by emotions, but even in this case the Swiss mission head did not want to give the boy a second chance, but on the contrary, he accused him of having damaged the dignity of an entire country.
Another unpleasant incident occurred when a seventeen-year-old boy was arrested for using threatening tones via Twitter with British diver Tom Daley. The insulting message read: “Today you let your father down. I guess you know what I'm talking about,” blaming the XNUMX-year-old athlete for only finishing fourth in the diving competition. The message becomes even more tacky, as Daley's father died last year due to brain cancer, a father who the boy always remembers as having been the one who gave him all the inspiration he needed to become a champion . "I tried my best" the diver replied to the boy who insulted him, "and now I have to put up with idiots like this", meanwhile the police have opened an investigation since in Great Britain any offense on the Internet is a criminal offence.
Another case with Twitter used as a negative medium involved Saudi judoka Wojdan Shaherkani. She, the athlete, had already been at the center of a national case regarding the fact of being able to compete with the veil, which was later given permission by the IOC through the use of a headset. This time the reaction of the girl's father was triggered by the insults and criticisms that came above all from the most extremist of her country, after the defeat that came in just 82 seconds at the hands of her Puerto Rican opponent. The offensive messages received against her were many and all very heavy in tone, this infuriated the athlete's father who, while explaining that he accepted the criticisms, stressed that he did not tolerate anyone who offended his daughter's honor. threatening several lawsuits and already sending several complaints (for which a woman has already been arrested).
Scandal has also made a photo posted by an anonymous source in recent days, which portrayed the copy of a receipt from a fancy London restaurant where a group of Olympic officials had dined, so far nothing strange, but if you look closely at the total bill you discover that the merry evening cost around 56 thousand euros. The photo caused great embarrassment and above all strong criticism from the outside for the squandering of money by officials, judged an indecency.
Looking into our house the case that caused the most sensation in this Olympic adventure was certainly that of Filippo Magnini and, cascading, other members of the swim team. The events are known: after the repeated and burning disappointments remedied in these Games by the whole national team, Magnini, after accusing the technical staff and teammates, setting himself up as captain, had pointed out on twitter as bad people, imbeciles and ignorant, all those who according to him had exaggerated their criticisms and who always according to him were happy if sporting Italy went badly. With this message he had said to abandon the people of Twitter because it is full of bad people. The controversy then went on, above all with comrade Orsi who had replied in kind, and with the other comrade Luca Dotto who had always entrusted Twitter with his thoughts on the blue environment created by Magnini; among other attacks, denials and reverses, comrade Federica Pellegrini also had to intervene. The blue champion was also the protagonist on various social networks of attacks and criticisms based on her bad performance in the pool, to which however the supporters of the swimmer responded daily, incredulous of certain comments regarding one of the stars of our sports movement.
But in addition to controversies and criticisms, Twitter was obviously the main place where compliments and exultation were unleashed for our medal-winning athletes, with messages arriving from other Italians involved in London and from sporting champions of the present and past, in addition to greetings from various famous people of our country. The incredible victories of fencing, first female and then male, for which adjectives have run out (even on Twitter!), have caused great affection, but also the feats of athletes less known so far by ordinary people have given way to a crazy amount of messages of pride and esteem for having raised the Italian flag (the website of the canoeist Molmenti has even gone haywire!). They deserve a separate chapter the divers Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallapè, unfortunate and come one step away from the medal both in sync and in the individual, have been overwhelmed on the web by endless messages of love and support, as if they were on the podium all the same.
For the rest, these first ten days of Games on the web were characterized by great compliments and tributes to the amazing feats of myths like Phelps, Federer and Bolt, with messages arriving both from ordinary people and from other world sport champions, to reaffirm the greatness of these athletes. But, in addition to the most famous, very young (and often beautiful) new champions of various sports had their multimedia limelight (but above all the swimmers were admired, as well as their male colleagues) such as the fifteen-year-old Lithuanian gold medalist in the 100 breaststroke Ruta Meiluyte, who from Van Persie to Rooney has already garnered a remarkable group of famous admirers.
In the coming days, until the closing ceremony on Sunday, the network will continue to chirp as it has done so far, amid controversy, joy and curiosity, but for the moment we leave ourselves with two posted images that well represent the satisfaction of two monstrous athletes competing , but also in celebrations: Bradley Wiggins completely devastated and drunk after drinking yet another bottle on the evening of victory in the individual road time trial and Usain Bolt, immediately after setting the Olympic record in the 100m, portrayed in his room in the company of three Swedish handball players… here is the Twitter-Olympics!
