“Below the belt”: biathlete Janina Hettich-Walz Image: picture alliance / CTK
Insults on all channels: After her second place in the individual, Janina Hettich-Walz also reported how biathletes are exposed to hate speech online.
The evening after she had fulfilled her “career dream,” Janina Hettich-Walz was able to pick up her smartphone with a good feeling and scroll through the many messages that had reached her. Her cell phone “literally exploded” after winning the silver medal in the individual race at the Biathlon World Championships in Nove Mesto.
In the previous days, when the German ski hunters had no success, she “stayed away from social media a bit,” said the 27-year-old. Because after finishing 35th in the sprint and 25th in the pursuit, she realized that it wasn’t good for her to read negative comments, some of which went “below the belt”. “We’re not happy if it wasn’t good and we want to do better. That just doesn’t help at that moment.”
