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Marathon Runner Slammed For Apparent Lack Of Sportmanship During Race

Marathon Runner Slammed For Apparent Lack Of Sportmanship During Race

Morhad Amdouni has been criticised for 'knocking over' bottles of water during a race

Dominic Smithers

Dominic Smithers

A runner has been criticised after he appeared to 'deliberately' knock over bottles of water during a race at the Olympic Games.

Dozens of athletes took to the streets of Tokyo today (8 August) for the gruelling marathon. But while Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge defended his title and took home the gold medal, it was Morhad Amdouni who most people were left talking about.

In footage shared on social media, a pack of runners can be seen passing one of the many water stations along the route.

At first, nothing seems too out of the ordinary, that is until the Frenchman wipes out an entire row of bottles before his fellow athletes can get to them.

And to add insult to injury, he then takes the last bottle for himself.

Temperatures in the city reached 27°C, and while it's not clear whether or not Amdouni did this on purpose, many branded the move 'dangerous'.

Piers Morgan slammed the runner, writing: "The Gold medal for biggest d***head of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors...Unbelievable!"

Echoing the criticism, another user shared the footage, writing: "Marathon runner's act of no fairplay. @amdouni_morhad knocked down water bottles so runners couldn't hydrate."

A third wrote: "Didn't notice this at the time during the marathon earlier... Sometimes s***housery can be kinda funny, if looked at dispassionately. This is just awful. A dangerous, low act from Morhad Amdouni."

While another added: "The act of knocking over a whole row of water bottles in terrible conditions by Morhad Amdouni was the lowest thing I've seen at the Olympics!"

Former Olympic long jumper Dave Culbert said he wasn't sure how it happened and that he'd 'let the audience be the judge as to whether that's been done deliberately'.

He continued: "What did you make of that? It's hard to grab as you are walking along and running at pace."

PA

And Tamsyn Manou offered her support for the runner.

Offering her thoughts, she said: "I think it is pretty hard to grab those drinks. But it's not helpful to the athletes behind him."

Others also claimed it could very well have been accidental and people shouldn't rush to judgment.

This comes after a German modern pentathlon coach was thrown out of the Tokyo Olympics for punching a horse during competition.

Kim Raisner was trying to assist German athlete Annika Schleu as she battled to control Saint Boy ahead of her showjumping round in the women's event on Friday (6 August).

Featured Image Credit: Twitter

Topics: Marathon, olympic games, Race, Social Media, Twitter, France, Japan