Racism slur now hits Commonwealth Games

Racism slur has become the latest  controversy to hit the already-troubled Commonwealth Games with at least  three such incidents since the mega-event got underway last Sunday.

South African  swimmer Roland Schoeman had on Friday condemned crowd antics describing  them like "monkeys", while an English official used an expletive against  Indian archery head coach Limba Ram in two different incidents.

Former world record  holder Schoeman was furious at the noise during his 50m freestyle semifinal and referred to a particularly vocal spectator as a monkey.

"There were people  going on like monkeys. It's an absolute disgrace. There's a guy in the  stands just shouting, shouting, shouting. Somebody like that needs to be  ejected," the South African ranted as he was allowed to restart and  qualified for the final.

"It's unacceptable  to be at a professional event like this and have people going on like  monkeys. Someone like that doesn't deserve to be here."

But later in the day in a  damage-control mode, Schoeman tweeted: “For the first time in my life I  had someone scream out as we were going to start the 50m freestyle..”

"I've never  experienced something like that before. The behaviour by that individual  was unacceptable and my comments are directed solely at him. The  spectators have been fantastic here. But an individual like that doesn't  deserve to be sitting poolside at an international competition," he  said in the micro-blogging site.

Earlier, the chief  Indian archery coach had to bear the brunt of a miffed English official  after their one-point defeat to lose the gold medal in the women's  recurve team event at the Yamuna Sports Complex.

The Olympian said that he was abused by a foreign official when he went to shake hands, a customary gesture after a match.


"When I was about to  extend my hand to this person wearing English team colours (white and  red), he showed me his elbow and told me 'f*** ***'," said Ram.

England's archery  team official, Hilda Gibson, though said she was unaware of the  incident. But the English archers complained about the crowd behaviour  at the archery venue though they did not blame it for their loss.

"The crowd were  intentionally shouting, which is not a good thing to do in a sport like  archery. In England, crowd would have been quiet. It was not good  sportsmanship. But we are not blaming them nor are we protesting,"  Gibson said, as FITA issued a statement and threatened to stop the  competition if such incidents happened in the future.

Already there had been a diplomatic  row following a New Zelander TV presenter's racist jibe at Delhi Chief  Minister Sheila Dixit.

Source: Indianexpress.com 

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