Growing up, I was never particularly interested in sports – I was completely sedentary and never did a single moment of physical activity that wasn’t forced. But when my mum and I were dropping a friend off at a rowing program that an Olympic rower was starting in the small Canadian town where I grew up, we heard there was an extra spot. My mum said, “You go”.
It was a struggle at first. I would start running with the team, then hide behind a bush until they came back to avoid any extra physical exertion, but over time, I loved it and saw the community sport could bring. I really started to see that sport is transformative – it changed my concentration levels, my social network, my physical health and how I felt about my body, and I even started getting better grades.
Eventually, I went on to represent Canada for more than 10 years, becoming World Rowing Champion in 2006 and competing in the Olympic Games Beijing 2008 before moving into sports medicine and research. I took up the role of the International Olympic Committee’s Health, Medicine and Science Director in 2024, the first woman to hold the position.
At the IOC, our mandate is to promote and protect athlete health, which can include everything from overseeing the Olympic Village medical clinic to bringing together thousands of experts to discuss the latest research on topics such as athlete mental health and injury prevention in female athletes.
The Evolving Landscape of Athlete Health and Wellbeing
Several things have changed significantly since I was an Olympian. It’s great to see there’s now a much better focus on female athlete health, with tailored programs for injury and illness prevention, and equipment designed to be more female-friendly.
There have also been changes in the industry’s approach to mental health, as professionals begin to recognise that how their athletes feel mentally is just as important as their physical health. Consequently, athletes have felt more comfortable sharing their mental health struggles with their teams and their fans.
The Rise of Online Abuse in Sport
But there’s something that’s changed for the worse: the advent of social media facilitating cyber abuse towards athletes, which is alarmingly prevalent.
The IOC firmly believes that “online abuse not only erodes the mental and emotional well-being of athletes, but also poses a threat to their physical safety and professional careers”.
Social media is a really valuable tool for athletes to deepen engagement with their fans and attract sponsorship opportunities, but having to ignore online violence to reap the benefits of these platforms isn’t good enough. Until recently, the onus was on the individual athletes to report the abusive content and comments they received to authorities.
That’s where our opportunity to step up came in.
How AI Helps Detect and Report Dangerous Threats
We wanted to protect athletes from the stress of having to go to authorities themselves, so at the Olympic Games Paris 2024, the IOC introduced the Threat Matrix AI system. The Threat Matrix AI system uses forensic investigation techniques and a specialist methodology to detect comments on X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok that are potentially criminal in nature and flag them to law enforcement immediately. In many cases, this means abusive messages are removed from those social media platforms and dealt with before the athletes has even had the chance to see it.
In the first week of last year’s games, this technology prevented 4,000 individually targeted threats from reaching our athletes and their teams. By the end of the games, this technology had scanned 20,000 social media accounts of athletes and their entourages and reported 353 cases of abuse to authorities.
Protecting the Olympic Experience
This AI system will be continued at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, along with in-person support services, such as a 24/7 Mentally Fit hotline that athletes can call and Olympic Village Mind Zones, which are places for athletes to disconnect and decompress with activities like virtual reality meditations, journalling and paint by numbers – which athletes said they really valued at Paris 2024.
Like me, the vast majority of athletes will only experience one Olympic Games in their lifetime, so we need to make sure that they are not only able to perform at the best of their ability, but they really get to live and focus on the Olympic experience, which is about peace, harmony and coming together in respectful competition.
The Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 will be screened live and free on 9Network and 9Now.