gwalla | "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Did anyone else see that Brazilian marathon runner get tackled mid-race by some asshole from the crowd?

That was bad enough. What a shitty thing to happen, and what a shitty thing to do. But what really pissed me off was that the announcers started referring to the costumed jackass as an "apparent protester", and then as simply a "protester". Why? There wasn't any evidence that the guy was protesting anything, and the guy he assaulted was Brazilian, not American.

And it eventually turned out that he wasn't a protester, he was just some (ex?-)priest from Ireland with mental problems, who had also run out onto the track on a previous occasion (wearing the same costume!) during an indy-car race and narrowly avoided getting his ass run over.

(Oh yeah, and nice job, Olympic Security! One of your guys was right there on a bicycle and couldn't prevent the guy from attacking; the crowd had to pull him off of the runner.)