Skip to main content

Watch a Man Throw a Bucket of Water at the Olympic Torch and Miss


Every Olympic year, the Olympic flame begins its journey from Athens to the host city of that year’s Games. Said to represent the importance of fire to the ancient Greeks, the flame relay is a reliable, if slightly hokey, tradition.

In 2016 as the flame is currently on a 12,400-mile journey to Rio de Janeiro, the site of the Summer Olympics.

Before Rio, though, is a 300-city tour of Brazil. And it was on that tour, on Sunday, that the flame came under attack. Working on what he told police was a dare, a 27-year-old threw a bucket of water at the torch and its bearer, according to the BBC.

In the video above, you can see the perpetrator slowly wait for his moment, before tossing a not-inconsiderable amount of water the flame’s way.

Yet, all of that careful planning failed. The water-tosser, identified as Marcelino Mateus Silva Proença, missed, and was later arrested.

According to CNN, Proença seems to be enjoying the notoriety, posting stories about the water incident on his Facebook page and sharing a selfie of himself leaving the police station.

But he also hinted at political motivations behind the water throw, saying that while he might “have the torch,” he had no education, health, security, or quality of life.

The upcoming Olympics, which begin on August 5, have been beset by a variety of problems and controversies, so it seems fitting that the torch, the official symbol of the games, is encountering its own obstacles.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Do We Scratch Our Heads When We're Thinking?

Some people believe that certain automatic gestures — like scratching our heads when we're thinking — are natural motions that were passed down to us from our caveman predecessors. JOSE LUIS PELAEZ INC./GETTY IMAGES If you've ever had the distinct pleasure of sourcing stock photos for any reason, you've likely come across a whole lot of laughing women eating salads alone . But you've also probably stumbled upon a truckload of people scratching their heads to symbolize confusion, deep thought and/or perhaps a bad case of seborrheic dermatitis — dandruff. Scalp dryness aside, how exactly did the head scratch come to symbolize intellectual processes? Some people believe that certain automatic gestures are simply natural, expressive motions our caveman predecessors passed down to us. "One popular explanation for any hand-to-head movements is that they're frustrated aggression — a reversion to the natural movements of our rock-throwing ancestors," wrote Sa...

How Do You Evict Your Freeloading Friend?

Guest Trisha just told you she's not leaving your house. How can you get her OUT? It was supposed to be just a few weeks. That was the deal. Your college friend Trisha was blindsided by her husband filing for divorce and needed a place to crash until she could find her own apartment. She's always been a bit of a mess, but you couldn't turn your back on a friend in need, right? Now "a few weeks" has turned into eight months. In the beginning, she at least pretended to browse Craigslist for cheap sublets and part-time work, but now she doesn't do much of anything, unless binge-watching Netflix can be considered a full-time job. You finally work up the nerve to ask Trisha to leave. Your place is just too small and your boyfriend thinks she's a leech, eating all your food and never offering a dime for groceries, let alone rent. You break the news gently to Trisha; she has to be out by the end of the month. And then she breaks the news to you: Nope, she...

Was Gandhi truly a Racist or Pedophile?

Who is Gandhi? "Mahatma Gandhi, full name "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi" was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India" We need to be careful about what we think we know of an icon. History is an evidence-based pursuit, not an opinion-founded political football. To get closer to the truth, we need to look at evidence. Was Gandhi racist ? By contemporary standards, the answer is a resounding "yes" - and quite probably a "no" too. Like all people, Gandhi was not a god. He was just a man and as human as any of us. But he did say things that were bigoted against other races. Timelines South Africa In his younger days, Gandhi spent 21 years practicing as a lawyer in South Africa. Many of his statements then, although probably normal at the time, seem extremely bigoted and shocking now. The Natal Indian Congress was formed on August 22, 1894 wit...