Research shows that large-scale sporting events and accompanying media coverage contribute to the dissemination of nationalist and neoliberal ideologies intersecting with gender norms embedded in the power structures of the modern nation state. Elite athletes competing in these events often become media focal points, with women athletes susceptible to intense scrutiny and differential coverage. Despite a recognized need to investigate the gender-sensitive interplay between ideologies, power and context through mediated sport, scholarship has frequently focused on gender-blind, isolated expressions of ideology in the Global North. Through an innovative critical discourse analysis (CDA) of online media portrayals of Indonesian women athletes competing in the Southeast Asian (SEA) games, this article highlights the complex manifestations of nationalist and neoliberal ideologies with gender in a nation of the Global South. It delivers a deeper understanding of the contextually contingent, multifaceted relationships between ideologies and power expressed in discursively mediated sport, and the impact on women in sport and broader society.