According to an article from Lâ€™Orient-Le Jour, Lebanese athlete Gretta Taslakian was banned from the Olympic Village in London for wearing the Irish team’s uniform during a training session and flew back to Lebanon on Tuesday.

Lâ€™Orient-Le Jour contacted Gretta who denied that she was wearing the Irish uniform and said it was simply a green Nike jacket. She added that she still has the jacket and it has nothing to do with the Irish team except the color maybe.

Now the interesting part is that Gretta’s coach, VahÃ© Abrahamian who is still in London, apparently informed the Olympic committee that Gretta was indeed wearing Irelandâ€™s uniform during a training session and showed them pictures. I donâ€™t have any of the pictures but why the hell would a coach do something like that? Why didnâ€™t he simply inform her that she shouldnâ€™t be wearing the uniform or a jacket of the same color?

Last but not least, so what if she wore another countryâ€™s uniform? Doesnâ€™t that fall under the â€œOlympic spiritâ€ slogan? I donâ€™t recall that happening in any of the previous Olympics. Actually according to Lâ€™Orient-Le Jour, it may be the first time ever an athlete is banned for such a reason. They also pointed out on how the Kenyan runner Kemboi, winner of the 3000m race, wore the French uniform while parading around the stadium and no measures were taken against him.

Gretta is a great athlete and has won gold medals for Lebanon in Asian and Arabic tournaments and deserves much better than that!

Read the full article [Here]

PS: Antoine Chartier, president of the Lebanese Olympic delegation, did not yet comment on the matter.