Going viral can be a good thing. You can garner attention and your popularity can skyrocket. These moments can come in any form. It can be an appearance, dance or any other action. No matter the method, they will gain infinite attention. The Olympics is no different. There are several competitors who have gone viral.
When it comes The Games, athletes can use all general equipment that's on offer. However, in the Shooting event, Turkish competitor, Yusuf Dikeç, offered a masterclass in nonchalance during the air pistol mixed team competition on Tuesday and went viral for it.
While his opponents took to the competition with specialised equipment – custom glasses to obscure vision in one eye, large ear protection and tinted lenses – Dikeç managed to claim Turkey’s first ever Olympic medal in shooting with teammate Sevval Ilayda Tarhan in what looked to be his everyday glasses and one hand in his pocket.
He said, "I shoot with both eyes, most shooters do it with one. So I didn’t want that all that equipment. Shooting with two eyes — I believe that it’s better. I’ve done a lot of research on it, so I didn’t need the equipment.
"Shooting with my hand in my pocket has nothing to do with artistry. I am more motivated and feel more comfortable while shooting." He added that this stance "is actually about bringing the body to equilibrium and focusing and concentrating."
Photos of the casual 51 year-old went viral – not least because of the stark comparison to pictures of Olympic shooting superstar, Kim Ye-ji, whose cap, futuristic glasses and calm composure wouldn’t look out of place on a street style-inspired runway.
One social media user said of Dikeç, "Top confidence. A hand in the pocket. No specialised lenses, no problem. Too easy for a him."
Another lauded his "insane aura," while Mexican outlet, Diario Récord, wrote, "At 51 years old, he competed in the Olympic Games as if he were on the patio at his home!"
After securing the silver, Dikeç said, "I’m very happy. An Olympic medal is an Olympic medal and in Los Angeles [at the 2028 Games], hopefully, it’s a gold medal."
Another shooter who's getting a lot of attention is South Korean Kim Yeji. it was an older video of Kim competing in Azerbaijan in May that went viral on X, gaining more than 7 million views and a horde of new fans in just a few days.
In the video, Kim wears a backwards cap over her blunt bob, her steely gaze fixed on the target through a pair of shooting glasses — a piece of specialist eyewear that helps athletes focus on the target but also looks like something out of a science-fiction movie.
Her arm extended and head tilted down, she fires and barely reacts as it emerges she has set a new world record. She flips up her glasses’ lens to stare directly at the camera before glancing impassively at the nearby screen.
Images from her Sunday performance also circulated widely online, with people complimenting not only her unflinching expression but also her black Fila jacket, Sauer shooting shoes and the stuffed toy elephant that hung from her pocket as she competed.
A photo showing Kim leaning back with one hand resting nonchalantly on her hip and the other holding a pistol, her ponytail flicking out from the back of her cap, was shared by the X account Women Posting W’s with the caption "the most aura I have ever seen in an image." It has since been liked over 300,000 times.
Other posts on X, each boasting hundreds of thousands of likes, applauded her "main character energy" and declared her "mother," the ultimate stamp of approval in Internet-speak. The platform’s owner, Elon Musk, meanwhile, commented that Kim, "should be cast in an action movie."
Kim won silver at the 10-meter air pistol event on Sunday, with her 19-year-old teammate, Oh Ye Jin, taking the gold. Kim and Oh’s podium finish reflects South Korea’s strength in shooting, with the country taking home medals in the event at every edition of the Summer Olympic Games since 2000.
In the 7's rugby event, U.S.A.'s Ilona Maher has been making waves. Although she’d never medaled at the Olympics until this year, she was already a Team U.S.A. favourite coming into the Paris Games for her TikTok presence. She’s reliably candid and silly on the app and though she’s clearly having the time of her life with her women’s rugby teammates, she also routinely uses TikTok to refute cruel comments about her body.
In one video filmed before the Olympics, another user attempted to insult her body by guessing her BMI, or body mass index, which is often an inaccurate measurement of body fat for people with a ton of muscle like Maher. She didn’t let the comment slide.
"I’m 5 (feet) 10 (inches), 200 pounds and I have about, and this is an estimate, but about 170 pounds of lean mass on me," she said in the video. "So yeah, I do have a BMI of 30, I am considered overweight. But alas, I’m going to the Olympics — and you’re not."
Newfound fame isn’t distracting her from the ultimate prize, though. Earlier this week, Maher helped lead the U.S. women’s rugby team to their first-ever medal, bronze, in rugby 7's.
In men's gymnastics, it’s no wonder that Fred Richard’s TikTok username is "FrederickFlips": his amazing acrobatic skills are what most of his nearly 800,000 followers come to his page to see. Leading up to the Olympics, the gymnast shared breathtaking clips from training of himself flying through the air on the high bar.
Flipping so quickly and with such discipline inspires nausea in most of us but not Richard. In one of his more poignant clips, he shows how he’s progressed on the high bar since middle school. Even as a 12-year-old, he could out-flip mostly everyone on Earth. It’s a blast to watch him at his very first Games, earning a team medal (and thoroughly enjoying the bag of Skims loungewear that every member of Team U.S.A. received).
Another gymnast gaining attention is Stephen Nederoscik. The U.S. men’s gymnastics team’s "pommel horse hero" earned Clark Kent comparisons for his bespectacled appearance on the sidelines as his teammates competed in multiple events during the team final. Nederoscik, meanwhile, only performs on the pommel horse. There's a good reason: he’s the only American gymnast who’s made the Olympic team as a single-event athlete. Team U.S.A.’s Clark Kent is just that talented.
While his teammates sweated and swung their bodies, Nederoscik closed his eyes and calmed himself down. When it came time for the pommel horse, Nederoscik, as the last man up, dropped the glasses and unleashed the beast. His near-perfect performance helped earn the U.S.A. men’s gymnastics team its first medal in 16 years and cemented Nederoscik as one of the Games’ first accidentally viral superstars.
Going to the pools and diving is U.S.A.'s Tyler Downs. The 21-year-old American diver is documenting his Olympics experience in its entirety, from scoping out attractive athletes at the Olympic dining hall to testing the durability of the infamous Olympic Village beds.
He might also be the biggest "brat" in Paris: he’s performed the viral dance to Charli XCX’s “Apple” all around Paris, including in front of the Eiffel Tower during the Opening Ceremony from Team U.S.A.’s boat in the Seine.
He’s never medaled at the Olympics before but he’ll get his chance on Friday, with partner Greg Duncan at the men’s synchronized 3-meter springboard.
There are several couples in contention at the Paris Olympics but the most surprising love story from the Games this year is between a man and many, many muffins.
Henrik Christiansen’s Olympics-set TikToks have almost entirely revolved around his love affair with a double chocolate-chip muffin.
Their relationship began when Christiansen sampled the muffin at the cafeteria and rated it 11/10, several points above the heartier meals athletes depend upon.
As the Games have continued, nothing can keep them apart. In nearly every video he’s made at the Games, the muffin is usually half-eaten, leaving a trail of melted chocolate smeared across Christiansen’s face. They’ve taken in the sunset together, shared discrete liaisons in the athletes’ quarters and toured Olympic Village — in one clip, Christiansen proudly struts through Paris with four chocolate muffins in hand.
Christiansen’s relationship with the chocolate muffin turned sinister in a recent video, in which Christiansen cries and flails, his wrists and ankles bound and his mouth covered with duct tape, as the muffin sits in the foreground, unmoving.
In artistic swimming, Daniella Ramirez basically glues her hair flat with so much gel that, when it’s dry, it forms an acrylic-like shell on top of her head - a method that’s great for keeping her hair in place in water sports but challenging to remove when the competition is over. It’s transfixing to watch her peel and crack her hair.
Although Ramirez is a top athlete, she’s also a fan of the biggest stars on Team U.S.A.. When LeBron James and Coco Gauff, two of the best to ever play basketball and tennis, respectively, served as flag bearers for Team U.S.A. during the Opening Ceremony, Ramirez and her teammates were right behind them in the upper deck, holding their tiny American flags, too.
"We’re matching his freak," they said in a TikTok, subtly geeking out over James and Gauff before staring ahead at the Seine, flags in hand, as though they were flanking George Washington on the Delaware River.
In men's Volleyball, Erik Shoji is the seasoned veteran among the viral Olympians: Paris is his third appearance at the Games and he’s likely hungry for another medal (he last made it to the podium in Rio, earning bronze).
Shoji is a libero, the team’s defensive specialist who supports from the back row of the volleyball court but he’s the team’s best-known player on TikTok. Perhaps his most informative videos are his culinary reviews of the dining hall options - he’s discerning but gracious, often taking into consideration how many hungry athletes the Games have to feed.
He even tried Christiansen’s favourite, the gooey chocolate muffin and confirmed that the pastry really is, "the best thing in the dining hall."
Like every Olympian at the Games, runner Tara Davis-Woodhall is thrilled to be living her Olympic dreams but she’s also keeping it very real about the unglamorous side of being an Olympian.
"Olympic Village struggle part 773,000-400 bajillion,” she started in one video in which she compared the dorm clothing racks to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. "Nothing works!"
Understandable complaints aside, there is an undeniably sweet element of Davis-Woodhall’s Olympic appearance: she’s sharing it with her husband, Hunter Woodhall, who’s a Paralympian and has earned three medals in track and field.
As it has been seen, going viral can be positive. It's good to unwind in the manner that the above competitors have done. Sporting unique ways to do something, wardrobe choice and off the field activities can relieve any possible stress that one may have.
In doing such activities, they may gain attention and soon become an overnight sensation. Going viral can help in building up a reputation in a fun and meaningful manner. The most important aspect is that the athletes are embracing the increase in popularity.