Karoline Simpson-Larsen’s Urgency After Olympic Gold Win

– We don’t know each other, but I want to write you a few words. You are a person I have no faith in.

This is how the message that ticked into Karoline Simpson-Larsen’s Instagram inbox begins.

She was part of the team that has celebrated a sensational relay gold in the Olympics. But at the same time as the games are going on, unwanted messages marked by incitement are coming in.

– I am so fed up with unhealthy girls who do cross-country skiing, and who in a very short period become “good at skiing” with refusal to eat as a starting point. Pull yourself together, the message goes on to say.

Swedish excitement

Simpson-Larsen is not alone. Just a few days earlier, Swedish Johanna Hagström was harassed after the Olympic sprint. Now it is the Norwegian gold winner’s turn to stand in the same storm.

How do you feel about getting crap in your inbox?

– I received a very ugly message that I just didn’t understand anything about. But it was so ugly that I didn’t care about it at all. But the fact that people can write such things is just shocking, says Simpson-Larsen about the message she received from an unknown person.

NRK has been in contact with the person who wrote the message to Simpson-Larsen, but that person did not want to give any further comment on why the message was sent.

– Stop making statements about anything until you have become normally healthy, eat healthy and win ski races over time. I don’t think that time will actually come, it concluded.

The girlfriend shared the content

The biathlete Johan-Olav Botn, who won Olympic gold in the normal distance earlier in the championship, shared the entire content of the message with his followers on Strava.

– If anyone wonders what it’s like to be a female skier.

To NRK, Botn explains why he wanted to share the content of the message his girlfriend received.

– I think it is absolutely sick that she receives such messages. I know very well what she has been through, and it has not been many years since she was refused entry. Even though she didn’t struggle with an eating disorder, she got the label, and it’s tough to be constantly reminded of this. It is particularly bad that she will still get that label when she is actually successful as a skier. I think that’s just completely idiotic.

Botn has subsequently deleted the screenshots of the message from the Strava post.

– What did Karoline say to you in connection with that message?

– She said the message is so sick that you just realize that the person is unstable. But the problem is that when you get as many messages as we do, you realize that not all of them can be unstable, because then the world wouldn’t have gone round. You can’t apologize for it all the time.

A disturbing trend

Unfortunately, the case is not the only one during this year’s Olympic Games. The case joins a disturbing series of harassment against female athletes across disciplines.

Earlier in the championship, we have also seen the young Polish jumper being peppered with threats after sporting adversity.

Swedish Johanna Hagström has also had to accept incitement. The tears rolled down when she was interviewed by NRK after the Olympic sprint. not because it was a huge disappointment to be knocked out in the quarter-finals, but because of what she encountered when she checked her phone.

– It was tough to watch, and completely the wrong occasion. I don’t understand that people can write like that, the Swede told NRK after the sprint.

– People don’t think before they write and have so many opinions about things, and I don’t understand that. You can keep it to yourself. They can mean it, but you don’t have to write it, Hagström continued.

Teammate Kristin Austgulen Fosnæs took the first stage on the gold team. She does not understand why adults send such messages.

– I don’t understand why they do it. It’s not nice. Everyone learns when they are small that you should be kind to each other. I hope that everyone can be kind to each other. Then the world can be a good place. Amen, says Fosnæs.