A surf judge has been sent home from the Olympics after he posed in a photo alongside Australian surfer Ethan Ewing and the national team coach Bede Durbidge.
The surfing competition for the Olympics is being held in Teahupo’o on the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, 9,000 miles away from Paris.
Australian Ben Lowe, who is an experienced World Surf League judge, was pictured smiling for a photo with Ewing and Durbidge in Teahupo’o.
The Instagram post was captioned: ‘These 3 Straddie [Stradbroke Island] Boys doing their stuff at the Olympics.’
The image emerged ahead of the men’s surfing quarter-finals where Ewing faced fellow Australian Jack Robinson.
But the International Surfing Association (ISA) took swift action against Lowe, who has been removed from judging the remainder of the Olympics.
A statement from the ISA read: ‘It is inappropriate for a judge to be interacting in this manner with an athlete and their team.
‘To protect the integrity and fairness of the ongoing competition, and in accordance with the ISA Code of Conduct and IOC Code of Ethics, the ISA Executive Committee has decided to remove the judge from the judging panel for the remainder of the competition.’
The surfing federation also added that it had ‘communicated with all judges and teams to remind them of their responsibilities regarding appropriate behaviour’.
Brazil’s surfing team have welcomed the decision from the ISA as a team official told Stab: ‘This is good for us.
‘If there’s no photo, nothing probably happens. But the situation is clearly not right.’
Robinson is now Australia’s only remaining hope of winning a medal in the surfing after he eliminated Ewing.
While in the women’s event, Australia’s Tyler Wright lost to the USA’s Caroline Marks.
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