Sport
Olivia Breen Left “Speechless” After Competition Official Criticised Clothes
Paralympic world champion Olivia Breen says she was left “speechless” and “angry” after an official labelled her competition brief inappropriate.
Breen shared her experience at the English Championships on Sunday during an interview with Sky News.
“An official came up to me and was like ‘can I talk to you?’, and I was like ‘yeah sure, what’s up?’. She was like ‘your briefs are too revealing, I think you should consider buying a pair of shorts’.” Said Breen. “I didn’t know what to say, I just looked speechless and I just said to her, ‘are you joking?’”
“She said ‘no, I think you should consider buying a pair of shorts’. I looked at my teammate and just didn’t know what to say and then she walked off. You shouldn’t tell us what we can’t wear and can wear.” She added. “I’ve been wearing these for nine years of my career. I’ve never had a problem like this before.”
Double Paralympic world champion Olivia Breen says she was left “speechless” after she was told that her sprint briefs were “too revealing” #KayBurley
Read more here: https://t.co/WRtWKDtf8b pic.twitter.com/njTLDJNte2
— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 20, 2021
The shorter ‘bikini-style’ shorts allow for better aerodynamics and add less weight to the athlete when competing.
The British sprinter and long jumper won a gold medal in the 2015 world championship for the T35-38 4x100m class. She won again in 2017 for the T38 long jump. She wore the same style of competition briefs in both championships.
“Officials should get educated on this because this can’t happen. This can’t happen again.” Breen said emphatically. “They can’t… obviously I’ve had lots of messages from young girls saying this happened to them and a lot of athletes as well. I think it’s really wrong.”
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England Athletics announced it is investigation the incident “as a matter of urgency”.
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