Sports fans are sure they’ve uncovered the reason why Ewa Swoboda was spotted switching up an on-camera gesture following her Olympic sprinting heat.
We’ve already seen some outstanding feats and baffling moments take place across the athletics portion of the 2024 Paris Summer Games.
There have been cameramen causing chaos in the 5000m race, heated rows between rivals and Noah Lyles’ torso winning him the coveted Men’s 100m final.
Elsewhere, three-time European Indoor Championship medalist Swoboda, 27, looked poised to take on and potentially storm the Women’s 100m.
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The Polish sprinter began her podium bid in style—beating out Great Britan’s Dina Asher-Smith and Nigerian Rosemary Chukwuma to top her heat group with a 10.99-second race.
However, she later failed to qualify for the final after clocking up a run of 11.08 seconds in the semis.
After qualifying from her 100m heat, Swoboda immediately dropped to her haunches and appeared to be taking a breather.
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As she crouched down next to the purple Stade de France track, a camera panned over to her and the sportswoman made a saluting gesture with her right hand.
Immediately after saluting, the athlete began to shake her finger from side to side and could be seen mouthing the word ‘no’.
She then used her left hand to make the salute again and Olympic viewers believe they know why.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, one fan wrote: “Saluting to the right is for military. She caught her mistake and then saluted from the left.”
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“Army salute is with right hand so to not be disrespectful she switched,” commented a second.
Another typed: “Military salute X civilian salute.”
According to a document from the US Department of Defense, it’s customary for the Army and Air Force to permit right-handed salutes.
Moreover, the Australian Army states that the military salute originated to show that the right hand, usually used for fighting, was not concealing a weapon.
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Another explanation for the right-handed salute could be when warriors approached generals or Kings, they would raise their visor to speak using their right hand while holding their horse’s reigns in their left.
Swoboda may not have made the Women’s 100m final but she has another chance to snatch gold as she takes on the Women’s 4x100 Relay.
She will compete alongside Magdalena Stefanowicz, Martyna Kotwiła and Krystsina Tsimanouskaya for Team Poland.
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The quartet will be racing against relay teams from Switzerland, Italy and Belgium as well as Australia, Germany, Côte d'Ivoire and the United States on Thursday (8 August).
Ella Scott