An Olympic athlete has been accused of sabotaging his fellow competitors after knocking over water left for his rivals at the Tokyo marathon.
Morhad Amdouni, a 33-year-old French long-distance runner, could be seen in footage knocking over a row of water bottles in the second half of the 26-mile race when temperatures soared to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, per Insider.
Fortunately for the runners behind Amdouni, organizers had plenty of supplies and restocked the table with more water bottles.
But while there is no indication in the clip that it was intentional on Amdouni's part - the athlete sparked backlash online, with outspoken commentator Piers Morgan taking to Twitter to scold the runner.
Morgan tweeted to his 7.9 million followers: "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!"
A number of the TV host's followers continued to berate Amdouni for supposedly sabotaging his opponents as they raced to complete the 26-mile race in the sweltering heat.
One person wrote: "Shocking stuff. Should he be disqualified for something like that?"
Another agreed: "Should be disqualified immediately and banned from any future Olympics. Deliberate you can see him doing and feeling he is enjoying it."
A third asked: "Surely that should be disqualification?"
However, not everyone took the video clip at face value, with many doubting whether Amdouni had seriously tried to prevent his opponents from speeding ahead of him.
One person argued: "It looks like an accident, he’s reaching out around the guy on his right and can’t grab one."
A different commenter pointed out: "Run the clip for 5 seconds longer and you’ll see another table full of drinks and everyone gets one. But I guess that wouldn’t fit the outrage narrative…"
A final person shared an entirely different point of view, writing: "IMO that’s a winners mentality, screw the others, no prize for being nice in individual sports. If that’s his method then fair play, I’m sure someone will do the same to him one day."