Generation TikTok: how sportswomen set the bar higher than the men

Female athlete power on social media became ever more strident in 2024 – but the backlash also damaged careers and wellbeingLina Nielsen remembers the moment she had the idea. She was sitting around the Olympic Village in Paris with her sprinting teammates – and she was bored. “I said to Yemi Mary John: ‘I’m gonna make this TikTok’,” Nielsen recalls. She took herself to her bedroom, got out the flip phone each athlete had been given and typed into an Exc