Greece Lightning
Greek athlete gets the boot for racist tweet, also supports Golden Dawn
July 25, 2012
Good God Greece. Could you please pull it together just a little bit?
Today, Voula Papachristou, a triple jumper, was cut from Greece’s Olympic team for tweeting a racist remark:
“With so many Africans in Greece… the West Nile mosquitoes will at least eat homemade food!!!”
A deeper investigation into her Twitter history revealed that Papachristou also has sympathies for the far-right Golden Dawn Party, otherwise known as the Neo-Nazis that 6% of Greece voted for, including half of its police force. While Papachristou apologized for her “tasteless joke,” the Hellenic Olympic representative rightly offered a stern judgment of her:
“She showed no respect for a basic Olympic value and unfortunately she is out,” Isidoros Kouvelos told Greek SKAI TV. “She made a mistake and in life we pay for our mistakes.”
Now if only that rule extended to the Knesset.
Adam Chandler was previously a staff writer at Tablet. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, New York, and elsewhere. He tweets @allmychandler.
