Sports commentator suspended after sexist remark about Australian swimmers

After becoming impatient live about a delay in the Australian selection on Saturday 27 July, commentator Bob Ballard was banned from Eurosport the following day.

The Australian swimmers barely had time to celebrate. Fresh from winning gold in the 4×100-metre freestyle relay, they greeted the crowd at La Défense Arena on Saturday 27 July. Bob Ballard, one of the commentators for the European channel Eurosport, was getting impatient live.Here the women are finishing. You know how women are… They hang around, put on makeup…” The remark, deemed sexist, earned him exclusion from the platform’s commentary team.

Mollie O’Callaghan, Emma McKeon, Meg Harris and Shayna Jack emerge from the water. They have just beaten the United States and China: this is the fourth consecutive time that Australia has won the gold medal in the 4×100-metre freestyle relay at the Olympic Games. The Australian athletes come back up the pool, wave to the spectators and celebrate their victory. This earns them a remark from Bob Ballard, one of the Olympic swimming commentators for the European channel Eurosport: “You know how women are… They hang around, put on makeup.” Her colleague, British swimming champion Elizabeth Simmonds, reacted quickly and described her remark as “scandalous”. Ballard laughed in response.

Except that the sequence did not go unnoticed and quickly became viral on the internet. “How to push back women’s sport”protests an Internet user on X. In response, the Eurosport channel quickly sanctions Bob Ballard. “During a segment of Eurosport last night, commentator Bob Ballard made an inappropriate comment […] As such, he has been removed from our sports commentary team with immediate effect.”the channel announced in a press release on Sunday, July 28. Indeed, the commentator was absent from the airwaves the following day, and he will be absent for the duration of the Paris Olympic Games.

Bob Ballard is a former British reporter and presenter. Under contract with the Eurosport channel, he was supposed to follow and commentate on the swimming events of the Paris Olympic Games. Accustomed to Olympic competitions, he has been covering them for almost 40 years: the commentator has followed many water polo, ice hockey, and diving events. For the moment, Bob Ballard has not yet reacted publicly, although he commented on the photo of his replacement on the social network X: “Have fun”.