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By Oliver Tree: Subscribe to Oliver's RSS feed | August 6, 2012 1:13 PM GMT
A Dutch Judo champion has described the moment she hit a man who threw a bottle onto the track at the start of the men's 100m final on Sunday as an "emotional" reaction.
Edith Bosch, 32, was standing next to the man when he hurled the plastic bottle from behind the start line only seconds before the race began.
"I had seen the man walking around earlier and said to people around me that he was a peculiar bloke," she told Dutch TV station NOS TV, according to the Daily Telegraph.
"Then he threw that bottle, and in my emotion I hit him on the back with the flat of my hand."
"Then he was scooped up by the security. However, he did make me miss the final, and I am very sad about that."
"I just cannot understand how someone can do something like that."
The man was quickly grabbed by Olympic security staff, removed from the stadium and arrested.
He remained in custody at an east London police station on Monday.
Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London 2012 Olympic games, described the incident as "poetic justice."
"Throwing a bottle on to the field of play is unacceptable; it's not just unacceptable at an Olympics Games, but at any sporting event and anybody who does that will be removed," Coe said, according to the Associated Press.
"I am not suggesting vigilantism, but it was actually poetic justice that they did happen to be sitting next to a judo player."
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who went on to win the 100m final, said he had been unaware of the incident.
"No, I keep hearing that. I don't know who would have done that."
"It was a little distraction, and I didn't know what it was," said a fellow American 100m finalist.
"But when you're in those blocks and the whole stadium's quiet, you can hear a pin drop."
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