Elaine Thompson-Herah: Instagram blocks Olympic sprint champion for posting videos of her own races

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Tokyo Olympic sprint queen Elaine Thompson-Herah has been blocked by Instagram for posting videos of her 100m and 200m races.

The Jamaican sprinter defended her Olympic titles from Rio over the two distances in Tokyo, making it four Olympic gold medals from two Games.

But her attempt to share her Tokyo competitions with her 310,000 followers on Instagram backfired.

“I was blocked on Instagram for posting the races of the Olympic (sic) because I did not own the right to do so. So see y’all in 2 days,” she wrote on Twitter.

Thompson-Herah is due to compete in the women’s 4x100 metre relay on Thursday and, should Jamaica qualify for the final, on Friday. She won a silver medal with her teammates in Rio.

The International Olympic Committee said the removal of unauthorised content on social media was an automatic process.

“Rights Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) have the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympic Games,” the IOC told Reuters.

“This includes distribution on social media, where athletes are invited to share the content provided by the RHBs on their accounts but cannot post competition content natively.”

“Should that occur, the removal of such content from social media platforms happens automatically.”