Voula Papachristou: Olympic Dismissal for Tasteless Tweet Is Right Decision

Voula Papachristou, I have no sympathy for you. 

The story of the Greek Olympian is, by now, already a famous one. After sending out a painfully ignorant Tweet, the 23-year-old triple-jumper was kicked off the team by the Hellenic Olympic Committe.

Papachristou, while extremely apologetic and clearly disappointed, wasn't too happy about the ban (via guardian.co.uk):

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"But what has upset me the most is the excessive reaction and speed of the disciplinary decision.

I don't know if they want to make an example out of me because of my profile, this is for others to judge, but what I believe is that they used their maximum disciplinary power on me for this," Papachristou said. "They went straight to the final stage in excluding me from the team, which was highly excessive."

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Regardless of what the young Greek athlete was thinking when she posted her Tweet, she had to be punished in a severe manner. 

Whether she was just making a stupid joke, whether she meant to be racist or not, whether she's just flat out ignorant doesn't matter. She said what she said, and a punishment was necessary. 

As the saying goes, if you don't have anything nice to say (or Tweet), don't say anything at all. When typing out a Tweet, you at least have time to think it over. It's not a split-second decision. That means at some point, she thought to herself, "Yeah, there's nothing wrong with this Tweet."

That's an action that—no matter how it came about—can't go by without punishment. 

But did the punishment, as Papachristou believes, go too far?

To be blunt, absolutely not. 

These are the Olympic Games we are talking about. You know, the set of sporting events that serve as a place for athletes to compete against each other for national pride?

It's a month-long event that brings nations together in a peaceful, competitive matter. The Olympics are not only just a bunch of sports that we love to watch, they are a place where different nations, races and individuals all co-exist with each other.

To have someone like Papachristou, who would so thoughtlessly say or Tweet something like she did, compete at the Olympics would be the worst possible message the Hellenic Olympic Committee could send.

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