French athlete Morhad Amdouni has broken his silence on a controversial moment during the Tokyo Olympics men's marathon that dominated headlines over the weekend.
At the 28km mark of the long-distance event, footage showed Amdouni knocking over more than 20 bottles at the water station before snagging the last oneon the table.
Morhad Amdouni knocks over almost half the water bottles at a rehydration station during the Olympic men's marathon. Photo / Sky Sport
The athlete directly behind Amdouni subsequently missed out on a bottle with most of the athletes pouring it over their heads in the intense heat of Sapporo.
Former Olympic long jumper Dave Culbert wasn't not convinced it was merely an accident, saying he'd "let the audience be the judge as to whether that's been done deliberately."
"They do have staff there to replenish those stations, but I've got my eyebrow raised," he said on Channel 7.
Commentator Tamsyn Manou continued: "I think it is pretty hard to grab those drinks. But it's not helpful to the athletes behind him.
"The poor Japanese athletes and the ones coming in behind, it makes it harder to grab the next drink if there's any left."
British broadcaster Piers Morgan tweeted: "The Gold medal for biggest d***head of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni, who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors … Unbelievable!"
Dutch politician Peter Valstar tweeted: "Morhad Amdouni deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow contesters in the marathon. Abdi Nageeye was directly behind him and didn't get a bottle. Nageeye won silver. Amdouni finished 17th. Karma is a b****."
Following intense speculation online, Amdouni has claimed the water bottles were "slippery" and there was no malice intended.
"To put an end to all the controversy from the video, I show this video to actually understand what happened," Amdouni said.
"To guarantee freshness to the bottles, they are soaked in water, which makes them slippery. However, it is clear that I am trying to get one from the beginning of the row but they slip as soon as we touch them.
"With the fatigue, I started bit by bit to lose lucidity and energy in hanging on.
"So I really want to apologise to the athletes. But at one moment I tried to get hold of a water bottle, I made them fall."
The race was originally moved to Sapporo in a bid to avoid the intense heat of Tokyo, but it didn't appear to work with the 30-degree temperatures and humidity wreaking havoc.
Australia's Jack Rayner was among a group of runners who barely made it 10km, while Brazilian frontrunner Daniel do Nascimento collapsed in the back half of the race.
Amdouni ended up finishing 17th, to go with his 10th place finish in the 10,000m race earlier in the week.
Kenya's Kipchoge underlined his credentials as the undisputed king of the marathon with a dominant performance to retain his Olympic title.
The world record holder clocked 2:08.38 to win gold, becoming only the third man to win consecutive marathon titles.
Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands claimed silver in 2:09.58, just ahead of Belgium's Bashir Abdi in the final event of the athletics program at the Tokyo Games.
Kipchoge's victory margin of 1:20 was the biggest since Frank Shorter's victory at the 1972 Munich Games.
