00:00After winning the race, he walked over to the 14-year-old girl in the mascot costume.
00:04She offered him a gift, he slapped it away, and he assaulted her.
00:08He never explained why, and he never apologized.
00:11But it wasn't the first time Mahadeen Makissi Benibad had done something like this.
00:15Only two years earlier, at the same event, he pushed over a different mascot after winning.
00:20And a year after that, when the other French athlete on the track, Mehdi Bala,
00:23had apparently tried to console Mahadeen after he'd finished 11th in the race,
00:27that somehow escalated into an all-out physical brawl.
00:31It was a shame, really.
00:33Mahadeen was the fastest steeplechase runner France had.
00:35He even set the European record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 2013,
00:40a year after he assaulted the 14-year-old girl.
00:43But his arrogant, abrasive attitude and everything he'd done outside of his races
00:48had made a lot of people hate him.
00:50So, in 2014, by the time Mahadeen lined up at the European Championships in Zurich,
00:55there were many watching who had hoped that he would fail.
00:58But as the race went on, Mahadeen once again dominated the course.
01:01And as he came around the final straight in first place,
01:04he tore his shirt off, put it in his mouth, and encouraged the crowd to cheer for him.
01:08Many in the crowd, who knew everything he'd done before,
01:11watched on in disgust as he crossed the line in first place once again.
01:15The mascots ran for cover, and Mahadeen looked back at the other runners, laughing to himself.
01:20But later that day, there were reports of Mahadeen crying after the race.
01:25Why?
01:25Well, there's a rule in athletics, which he had obviously forgotten.
01:29He's got to be careful, that's a disqualification defence, that.
01:33That's a stupid thing to do.
01:34Indeed, it was a stupid thing to do.
01:37Mahadeen was disqualified,
01:39and the gold medal he'd worked so hard for went to his French teammate.
01:43Mahadeen
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