Ex-basketball player loses Paris 2024 role over Gaza post

Former French national team basketball player Emilie Gomis was stripped of her role as an Olympics ambassador over a controversy linked to a social media post about the Gaza war, Paris 2024 organisers said on Wednesday.

On Oct. 9, two days after Hamas' surprise attack on Israel, Gomis posted an Instagram story which showed maps of France being gradually covered by the flag of Israel, accompanied by a question that read "What would you do in this situation?" Critics accused the former basketball player of antisemitism and supporting Hamas' attack, which Gomis strongly denied.

"The members of the Board of Directors and the General Assembly were able to note that Emilie Gomis condemned the 7 October attacks in Israel and all forms of anti-Semitism and discrimination, which are contrary to her values," Paris 2024 said in a statement.

"Emilie Gomis also shared her regrets about her publication and apologised. "However, the (Paris 2024) General Assembly considered that this publication contravened her duty of neutrality and no longer allowed it to carry out her duties to Paris 2024 with equanimity."

The controversy surrounding Gomis, a retired Franco-Senegalese athlete who had played for France for over 10 years, winning a Euro title in 2009, is the latest thorny issue to face the Games, which is already beset by geopolitical strains from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

"The accusations of antisemitism I am facing are in total contradiction with the values that were instilled in me and that sport taught me," Gomis had said in a later social media post, apologising to "those who felt hurt".

Reuters could not immediately reach her for comment. Her Instagram account currently has 17.7 thousand followers.

Paris 2024 said it wanted a joyous and safe Olympics for all, but organisers are worried that the event could get caught up in politics amid continuing wars in Gaza and Ukraine and France's own internal security challenges. "It's obvious that the international context is particularly tense today," Estanguet said on Wednesday.

He had brought the Gomis case to the ethics committee which last month stated Gomis' post constituted "a serious breach ... of the ethical obligations."