Australian Olympic Boxer May Be Punished for Wearing Aboriginal Flag
Posted: Aug 03, 2012
Call it the T-shirt seen round the world. Australian boxer Damien Hooper entered the Olympic boxing arena in London on Monday wearing a shirt bearing the colors of the Aboriginal flag. And the International Olympic Committee (IOC) may punish him for it.
Hooper, 20, proudly displayed the flag of his people. “I’m an Aborigine representing my culture and my people here at the Olympic Games,” Hooper told World News Australia. Under International Olympic Committee rules no flags can be brought into stadia of nations not competing at the Games. The Aboriginal flag’s colors are red, yellow and black, which represent the Earth, the sun and Aborigines respectively. Despite the controversy, Hooper did pull off a major victory in the ring, beating Team USA’s Marcus Browne.
Hooper’s fellow Aborigine and Australian athletics legend Cathy Freeman celebrated her 1994 Commonwealth Games victory in the 200 metres by performing her lap of honor carrying both the Australian and Aboriginal flags, World News Australia reports. The flag, though, was flown at several Olympic venues at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney after heavy lobbying by the National Indigenous Advisory Committee.
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User Comments
John doe on Aug 08, 2012 at 16:50:57 said:
If he can't wear his flag, then Australia shouldn't be allowed to wear green and gold. That's not their flag colors, it their 'national' sports color. And since the Olympics is an 'international' event where country and nation are represented by their internationally recognised 'national flag' colors, Australia should not be the exception, neither should Nederland's orange color or any other country or nation whose color is not internationally recognized as a color on their national flags!!
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