After 19 days of pure joy, scintillating drama and despairing heartbreaks, the Summer Paris 2024 Olympics drew to a close on Monday (12 August).
However, Paris 2024 was regrettably plagued by several controversies, including the harassment faced by Algerian boxing gold medallist Imane Khelif about her gender and the Thailand flag wrongly being raised for Tajikistan’s boxing heavyweight bronze medallist, despite Thailand not even competing in the category.
Eurosport’s controversial farewell poster for Olympic Games Paris 2024
Now, even a poster bidding farewell to Paris 2024 has stirred controversy due to its lack of Asian representation.
Created and shared by the broadcaster Eurosport, the main rights holder for the Olympic Games in most of Europe on its official X (formerly Twitter) account, the poster received universal backlash from global netizens.
The X post, which dubbed Paris 2024 as “The Greatest Show on Earth”, was meant to bid farewell to the recently-concluded Olympic Games and features victorious athletes who made a name for themselves during the competition.
However, as many in the post replies have noted, there was an obvious lack of Asian representation in the poster.
In fact, ONLY 2 Asian athletes were featured in the poster, South Korean Kim Ye-ji who won gold in shooting and went viral for her iconic stance full of shooting gear, and Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem who against all odds, won the gold medal in javelin.
Netizens from around the globe criticised the poster’s lack of inclusivity
One commenter asked Eurosport why they didn’t put any athletes from China and Japan when both countries came in 2nd and 3rd place overall, respectively, in Paris 2024.
Meanwhile, another commenter claimed this was blatant discrimination from Eurosport, a sentiment echoed by many others in the replies.
Besides that, several commenters also urged Eurosport to retract this poster and create a new 1 that is in line with the Olympic spirit.
Another commenter wasn’t mincing their words and said that Eurosport should call Paris 2024 the “Greatest racist show on Earth” instead.
So, what do you guys think of the whole situation? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
