According to the Olympic Committee, Brazilian swimmer Ana Carolina Vieira violated a significant code of conduct and will be removed from the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The 22-year-old athlete was expelled from the squad after she secretly left the players’ camp to spend the night with her boyfriend, Gabriel Da Silva Santos.
Without proper authority, Vieira departed from the village on July 26, the night before her event on July 27 in the 4×100 meters freestyle relay. She did not do well in the event.
Following Vieira’s social media posts revealing her unauthorized departure, the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) acted swiftly. Her boyfriend, Gabriel Santos, also disobeyed the regulations, but after he apologized, he only received a warning. Vieira was to be sent back to Brazil without delay.
The COB upheld Vieira’s dismissal, citing her brazen and unannounced departure as the main grounds for the decision.
Brazilian Olympic Committee officials approached her about her conduct the night before, accusing her of “aggressively challenging” them.
Ana had raced in the 4x100m freestyle relay on July 27 alongside teammates Maria Paula Heitmann, Stephanie Balduccini, and Giovana Medeiros before being dismissed. Ana came in 8th.
The United States, China, and Australia won the event’s top three spots, while China placed twelfth overall and seventh in its heat.
The ruling surprised Vieira, and she took to Instagram to declare her innocence. She plans to sue the board for harassment.
The 22-year-old is competing in her second Olympics after Tokyo 2020, which was rescheduled to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also claims she has been left without her possessions and is unable to contact the COB because of this.
Gustavo Otsuka, the head of the Brazilian swimming team, stressed that Ana’s response to the relay lineup was a factor in her elimination.
