Lavillenie went on to collect the silver medal Tuesday night and was greeted with even louder boos, even after hometown favorite Thiago Braz de Silva won gold.
Advertisement
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach condemned the “shocking” and “unacceptable” behavior of the crowd in Rio.
Lavillenie received the same treatment throughout the competition, compounding his misery as he failed to defend his London 2012 gold to the less-renowned athlete from Brazil in the dramatic final. The initial boos didn’t start because of anything he did or said (the later boos did, however); as USA bronze medal pole vaulter Sam Kendricks understands it, they started because Lavillenie happened to be the biggest challenger to Braz de Silva. “Yes, sorry for the bad comparison I made”, he tweeted. “It was a hot reaction and I realize it was wrong”.
The 22-year-old Da Silva, who had urged the boisterous crowd to relent as he stood by the podium, later revealed that he had reconciled with Lavillenie, who had also been consoled by Ukraine’s former world champion Sergey Bubka and Lord Coe, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations.
“It’s disgusting”, said Lavillenie, “there is a total lack of fair play and I want to stress that the Brazilian is not involved at all”.
Rio 2016 Olympics’ spokesperson Mario Andrada said at a press conference on Wednesday that “booing is not the right way to help anyone”. Ashamed of the track and field crowd tonight.
“We have to have dialogue with Brazilian society and Brazilian fans, we’re committed to this and we’re going to keep working on this with the Brazilian fans using our social networks and website”.
Advertisement
The crowd’s reaction was criticised by Michael Johnson and others in the BBC team covering the event. “He was really hurt”.
