Athletes sticking up for each other


As everyone knows, Jamaican Usain Bolt won the 100m with a new Olympic record. Caity Weaver reports that just before the 100m final began, some jerk among the spectators had been hurling abuse at Bolt and that just before the starter gun went off, he threw a green bottle at him that fortunately fell behind the athletes and did not distract him or cause a false start.

Unfortunately for the bottle thrower, seated next to him was world judo champion Edith Bosch of the Netherlands, who had just won a bronze medal in the 70 kg division. She was so incensed at this spectator’s behavior that she says she hit him before the police came and removed him.

Neetzan Zimmerman tells us about a more uplifting occurrence that occurred after the race. In a nice gesture, Bolt interrupted a live TV interview in the middle to show respect for the award ceremony for American Sanya Richards-Ross who won the 400m final.

Comments

  1. says

    he threw a green bottle at him

    WTF? Thrown bottles can seriously injure someone! That’s insane!

    And what kind of abuse would make sense to hurl at an olympic athlete? Nationalism or racism seem the most likely candidates, to me. I regret that I won’t live long enough to see humanity outgrow those particular silly ideas. 🙁

  2. wholething says

    Did you see what Kirani James of Grenada did after he won the 400 meter semi-final race? He went over to Oscar Pistori and asked if he could trade name tags with him. Pistori did well enough in the opening round to qualify for that race but finished last. On his prosthetic feet.

    James went on to win the Gold in the next race.

  3. Pierce R. Butler says

    And I thought from the headline that this was going to be about the ~100,000 condoms reported to have been purchased for the athletes’ Olympic Village dorms…

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