About that Greek triple-jumper who got kicked off the team for a racist tweet…

Here’s the tweet, in case you didn’t see it:

Oh, yeah, you probably don’t read Greek. Well, it says something like there are lots of Africans living in Greece, so the mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus can enjoy “home grown” food. Something like that.

The virus originated in Africa, I guess.

The athlete’s name is Voula Papachristou.

She’s apologized, of course, and now she’s feeling kind of bitter – the tweet went out on Sunday, and by Tuesday she was kicked off the team. Yahoo’s Olympics blog writes:

Papachristou has a point. The reaction was excessive and the speed with which it was made suggests undue haste. It’s strange; Greek officials are usually so prudent and judicious in their decision making.

Word, and word. You train for years to reach the Olympics, and in a few seconds it all gets pissed away.

I dunno how racist her comment was. If I go to Florida and the alligator goes after our tour guide instead of me, then I guess the gator just had more of a taste for home-grown food, right?

(UPDATE - maybe if you interpreted it to mean she wants Africans to get West Nile? Dunno. I didn’t interpret it that way.)

But, feh. And of course I have no idea whether Papachristou had other problems with foot-in-mouth disease or what. I’ll just put this down as one more bit of evidence: you should never, ever put anything on the internet.