A French Runner Knocked Water Bottles Over During the Olympic Men's Marathon

French athlete Morhad Amdouni caught headlines this weekend after a video was circulated on social media showing the Olympian appearing to deliberately knock over a row of water bottles at the 28km mark during the Olympic Men's Marathon in Tokyo, Japan.

During the 26-mile event, Amdouni was seen running towards the marathon refreshment station — a long table lined with bottles of water ready to be picked up by the athletes — and proceeded to knock over every bottle, without breaking pace, only to pick up the final one.

Whether intentional or not, Amdouni's actions during the race have brought about varying degrees of criticism and commentary, including Australia's Ben St Lawrence tweeting "Thoughts on Amdouni knocking over an entire row of water before taking the last one?"

Similarly, broadcaster Piers Morgan lambasted Amdouni: "The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni," he tweeted. "Who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable!"

Amdouni would go on to finish 14th in the men's marathon, with Eliud Kipchoge winning the race in two hours, eight minutes and 38 seconds and defending his title from the 2016 Rio Olympics.

However, other pundits and athletes are vouching for Amdouni. "The audience [should] be the judge as to whether that's been done deliberately," said former Olympic long jumper Dave Culbert. "What did you make of that? It's hard to grab as you are walking along and running at pace."

Similarly, Australian media personality and former track and field athlete Tamsyn Manou said that "I think it is pretty hard to grab those drinks. But it's not helpful to the athletes behind him."

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