Greek Triple-Jumper Sacked from the National Team for Racist Tweets

Following the outbreak of Romney accused of buying Twitter followers, a triple-jumper got sacked from the Greek team to compete to the London Olympics 2012 due to a Twitter post in her feed mocking African immigrants in Greece much to the dismay of her followers, Greeks and Olympic s fans the world over.

Voula Papachristou, a 23-year-old triple-jumper and member of the Greece delegation to this year’s Olympic Games, was expelled by the Hellenic Olympic Committee after the young lady athlete posted a tweet last Sunday regarding African immigrants in Greece. With the London Olympics social move launching an athlete’s hub, it looks like the Greek delegation has cut a budding problem in the nip – that is, expelling careless athlete tweeters from their team. Meanwhile, the controversial tweet continues to garner the athlete social media and internet notoriety instead of gold-medal-snagging fame.

Officials of the Hellenic Olympic Committee viewed Papachristou’s tweet referring to African immigrants in Greece as “West Nile mosquitoes” contrary to the values and ideas of the Olympic Movement. The young athlete was in preparations to head to London for her first-ever participation of the Olympic Games but was shown the red light when she allegedly posted a joke on Twitter about African immigrants. 

A Tasteless Joke?

"With so many Africans in Greece, at least the mosquitoes of West Nile will eat homemade food!!!",Papachristou tweeted Sunday. Her tweet, including retweets of Greece’s extreme right-wing party Golden Dawn’s issues with immigration, proved to be quite a leap out of her biggest opportunity in her career in sports.

The tweet earned the triple jumper ire from armies of Twitter users from all over the world, Greek citizens, and even government officials who viewed her tweet as racist and tasteless. Papachristou, on the other hand, asserted that’s how she is and stood by her comments only to change her tune upon learning her ticket to London would be no more. 

I would like to express my heartfelt apologies for the unfortunate and tasteless joke I published on my personal (cont) tl.gd/ih3mcp
— βούλα Παπαχρήστου (@papaxristoutj) July 25, 2012

 Apology Accepted But Damage Has Been Done

Despite the young jumper’s remorseful apologies she posted later on Wednesday in her Twitter and Facebook accounts, the Hellenic Delegations’ Administration Board decided to bump her off the National Team citing "comments that go against the values and ideals of Olympism."

The 2012 Olympic Games happening in London (games started last Wednesday and opening ceremonies to start on Friday) have earned the buzz of being the first “social media Olympics” with the foresight that social networks will be playing a prominent role during the 16-day event. The International Olympic Community has released a social media, blogging and internet guidelines for all people involved in the Olympics weeks before the games commenced. 

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How to Get Mentions and Replies from Twitter Followers

Do you think it’s hard to get Twitterfollowers? Then, you have never known what difficulty means on Twitter. Besides, you can buy Twitter followers nowadays. You know what is hard to accomplish? It’s getting mentions. Not the past tense word “mentioned,” well that of course means the same thing, but it’s the feature with a prefix symbol @ that is so hard to acquire. Believe me; I’ve been trying to get my followers to add me to their mentions but for weeks I have failed…until now.

What happened that turned my fortune around 180 degrees? Let me tell you through these set of tips I learned on how to get mentions.

.    1.  Join follow Friday #FF

No, it’s not what you are thinking. We are not getting followers here, though that would prove a boon. I am referring to how users use the @username to refer you to people on Twitter to be followed. Most of these kind-hearted individuals recommends your account to their followers and uses the mention feature to create a link back to your Twitter account. What for? To be followed, of course.

.    2.  Bring up a topic to discuss

What is more effective than to bring up a stimulating topic to rouse your Twitter followers sleeping brains? You can start by looking into the trending topics and get an idea from there. Select active followers to mention and present them the dilemma or the scenario. Sooner or later people, their followers plus your followers will join, especially if the topic is about celebrities and social media.

.    3.  Give your followers praises

It’s great to be generous sometimes. Although, not to the point of actually sending your followers money through PayPal. Pick five followers to interact with, check out their tweets, visit their websites and give them praises for a wonderful post or for a great insight on a particular topic. With gratitude, they would not hesitate to return the favor plus the mention and reply you so want.

.    4.  Ask followers a question

Who could resist a question? It is the nature of human beings to be competitive no matter what, thus, it is hard for them to pass up a chance to prove their intelligence. So, don’t worry about not getting replied at or being mentioned. Even three to five followers are enough to say you have been a success. There is another day for more questions and luring additional mentions and replies from followers.

.     5. Don’t forget to retweet

Have you experienced getting mentions because you retweeted someone’s post? Remember those times? You just keep doing that to most of your followers and you won’t run out of mentions. There might even be a big chance of your account getting mentioned for virtually every post of some followers. Isn’t that awesome? It’s because you have established yourself as an active Twitter user who doesn’t hesitate to return favors, give praises and other actions that please people on Twitter.

Mentions, replies, hashtags and retweets are few of the popular features of Twitter that enliven the existence of users on the site. Without these, Twitter will be boring and considered to be just another trying hard Facebook. Maximize their potential, and then there will be no reason to stop you from reaching your goals.

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