Dutch Olympian Gets Booted From Rio For Getting Drunk With His Brazilian “Girlfriend”

Dan Regester10 years ago

The bad boy of gymnastics, Yuri van Gelder, was kicked off the Dutch Olympic team after making the finals in men’s rings and celebrating the accomplishment by hitting the town and getting shithoused with his Brazilian girlfriend escort.

From CNN:

The Dutch gymnastics association, KNGU, and the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOC-NSF) said in a joint statement Van Gelder, 33, had “gravely violated” team rules and that they had “no other choice” but to put him on the first plane home.

“It was a very difficult decision,” chef de mission Maurits Hendriks said in a statement on the KNGU website. “It’s terrible for Yuri, but this sort of behavior is unacceptable.”

Hendriks admitted the departure of the former world champion and triple European champion on the rings was “a bloodletting” for the Dutch team.
But, he stressed, “our athletes are role models.”

Hey Hendriks, I don’t care how little athletic competition is going down over in the Netherlands; no one, and I mean no one, is looking up to a men’s gymnast as a role model. If anything, the only guy kids would aspire to be in your sport is the one who has been popped for cocaine in the past and has a knack for partying.

People like a little edge. It humanizes your athletes. You want some eyeballs on your irrelevant sport — you need characters like Yuri van Gelder. That’s what moves the needle, not some social enigma that’s been in solitude with nothing but a springboard, horizontal pole, and two rubber nooses since he was old enough to walk. If that was my entire life, without drinking or cocaine, I’d hang myself well before getting to Rio.

van Gelder just wanted to throw a few back and get his rocks off with some fat ass Brazilian like any well-adjusted, normal dude, and you punished him for it. Good luck going mainstream with an attitude like that..

[via CNN]

Image via Youtube