Lucy Devine
An Olympics judge has been sent home from the Paris games over a photo that officials deemed to be 'inappropriate'.
Surfing judge, Ben Lowe, was seen in an image with Australian athletes, Ethan Ewing and Bede Durbridge, this week.
It was taken in Tahiti, where the surfing event is being held.
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Despite the seemingly innocent image, Olympic officials have said it wasn't appropriate.
Lowe has been a judge on the World Surf League for some time and also judged in the Tokyo Olympics.
But after being in Tahiti for over a week, he has now been sent home.
The photo of the three men was captioned: "These three Straddie [Stradbroke Island] boys doing their stuff at the Olympics."
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All three are from North Stradbroke Island in Queensland, and Lowe had been set to officiate events in which Ewing and Durbridge are competing in.
According to the International Surfing Association, the photo was inappropriate, due to its social nature.
“It is inappropriate for a judge to be interacting in this manner with an athlete and their team,” they said.
“To protect the integrity and fairness of the ongoing competition, and in accordance with the ISA Code of Conduct and IOC Code of Ethics, the ISA Executive Committee has decided to remove the judge from the judging panel for the remainder of the competition.”
The ISA also said they had 'communicated with all judges and teams to remind them of their responsibilities regarding appropriate behaviour’.
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It is not clear who posted the photo.
LADbible has contacted the World Surf League for comment.
Following the decision, the Brazil surfing team spoke out about what had happened, claiming it was 'good for them'.
“This is good for us,” a team official told Stab.
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“If there’s no photo, nothing probably happens. But the situation is clearly not right.”
Ewing and fellow Australian Jack Robinson will face each other in the quarter-final stage of the competition.
Meanwhile, Australia's Tyler Wright was knocked out of the contest by Team USA surfer Caroline Marks, in the women's quarter-finals earlier on Friday (2 August).
While Wright achieved a score of 5.37, Marks took the lead with 7.77.
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"She does what she does and she kinda did. She gave me a wave underneath and I almost converted again which is probably the most frustrating thing," Wright told Nine afterwards.
"It's really hard to ride the barrel on your back end out there and I did have that one opportunity... She kinda did but then at the end, she threw a rogue set that hadn't come through and we were never going to be in position for.
"It's a bit of a bummer, I'm pretty frustrated but that's OK."