Seriously, Mr Ballard!

On Sunday night in Paris, Australia cruised to a title-winning triumph in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay. It was Australia’s fourth consecutive gold in the event with a time of 3min 28.92sec, with Emma McKeon winning a sixth gold medal to become the country’s most decorated Olympian.

As McKeon was celebrating the win alongside team-mates Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack and Meg Harris, commentator Bob Ballard put his foot in his mouth, saying: “Well, the women just finishing up. You know what women are like … hanging around, doing their makeup.”

His remark did not go well with Ballard’s co-commentator at Eurosport, Lizzie Simmonds, who called it “outrageous”. The clip went viral raising a lot of hue and cry on various social media platform, forcing Eurosport to remove Ballard from its commentary team at the Paris Olympics.

A Eurosport statement said: “During a segment of Eurosport’s coverage last night, commentator Bob Ballard made an inappropriate comment. To that end, he has been removed from our commentary roster with immediate effect.”