The Olympic marathon race is a 42.195 km slog and can be hazardous to some athletes if they can’t stay hydrated. That’s why there’s so much controversy brewing over one marathon runner’s actions today.
France’s Morhad Amdouni caused a lot of friction as he approached one of the water tables to grab his bottle. He swept his hand over an entire row of bottles, knocking them off the table, before grabbing one for himself.
Broadcaster Tamsyn Manou seemed willing to give Amdouni the benefit of the doubt, pointing out that grabbing water bottles while running is difficult. “I think it is pretty hard to grab those drinks,” Manou said. “But it’s not helpful to the athletes behind him.”
Other members of the broadcast encouraged the audience to make up their own mind as to whether it was deliberate. “I’ll probably let the audience be the judge as to whether that’s been done deliberately,” Dave Culbert of Seven News (Australia) said.
Morhad Amdouni ultimately finished 17th in the race. Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge won gold, finishing with a time of 2:08:38 – a full minute and change ahead of silver medalist Abdi Nageeye from the Netherlands.
Thousands of people on social media have seen the video and are giving their thoughts on what happened. The responses are extremely mixed though and there really doesn’t seem to be a consensus.
Going 20km an hour sitting right behind athlete in front, Olympic marathon genuine mistake! You can obviously see he is just trying to grab one. Taken out of context, watch the next 10 seconds, numerous water tables.
— Mr Roberts 🏔⛺️ (@MrRobertsGeog) August 8, 2021
Acts like that should result in instant disqualification from the event and if clearly deliberate long term suspensions for all events. Lowest of the lows
— Jon Glasson (@Jon2040) August 8, 2021
After re-watching it- his face and body position, I think it was actually an accident! And everyone who thinks it was on purpose needs to watch his face. Also, realise the video is slowed.
— Limnetic V (@LimneticV) August 8, 2021
Automatic disqualification
— MADAMEARTH 🌎🤬✊🏾❤️💛🖤🦠😷🐀🌊 (@MadamEarth) August 8, 2021
As you can see, fans have a LOT of opinions about this incident.
What are your thoughts on the video? Did Amdouni pull a dirty move here, or was it an accident?
The post Look: Olympic Marathon Runner Sparks Water Controversy appeared first on The Spun.