Olympic officials made a statement on Monday that they were “looking into” US shot putter, Raven Saunders after she made the first podium protest of the Games, risking potential disciplinary action.
The 25-year-old African-American athlete crossed her arms in an “X” gesture during Sunday’s medal ceremony at the Olympic stadium after winning silver. Raven Saunders is an outspoken supporter of LGBT right and said her gesture was in solidarity with “oppressed people”. Saying that she wanted to represent “people all around the world who are fighting and don’t have the platform to speak up for themselves.”
Saunder’s protest is the first test of International Olympic Committee (IOC) rules which ban protests of any kind on the medal podium at the Olympics.
The IOC had tweaked its rules regarding athlete protests ahead of the games, saying that peaceful protests before competition would be allowed but there is a strict rule against protesting on the medal podium.
When asked about the protest, IOC spokesperson, Mark Adams, said that the body was in touch with the US Olympic Committee and the track and field’s governing body, World Athletics.
He said that, “We are, not surprisingly, looking into the matter and we’ll now consider our next steps.I think we need to fully understand what’s going on and then take a decision from there”.
Updated IOC guidelines said that disciplinary consequences for protests will be “proportionate to the level of disruption and the degree to which the infraction is not compatible with Olympic values.”
Sources: MSN, Sports NDTV
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