Sociomeeting: Understanding following patterns among Olympic medallists

Understanding how high-achieving athletes connect on social media platforms can provide insights into the spread of information among super-spreaders. This study examined the structure of connections among Olympic medallists from the Tokyo 2020 Games on Twitter. By analyzing follower-followee networks of 964 athletes, we identified 7,326 connections and found that athletes were more likely to connect with peers who shared similar features, such as sex, nationality, and sport. We quantified these patterns using random null models and explored the relative influence of these factors on connection likelihood.