Britain’s knee-taking women’s football (soccer) team has been left “devastated” after being knocked out of the Tokyo Olympics by the Australian side.
Despite English forward Ellen White scoring a three-goal hat-trick against the Australians, the woke team crashed out after the opposing side — who declined to take the knee — scored against them twice in extra time for a final tally of 4-3.
“We are devastated right now. It’s hard to lose a game like this. We were well prepared. We [played] most of the game quite well,” said head coach Hege Riise, a Norwegian.
“We created a lot of chances. We should probably have finished a few of them, and now it’s just hard,” she added.
Player Leah Williamson lamented that “We didn’t just want to come here and celebrate being Olympians. We wanted gold. We wanted to win.”
Like the English men’s team which recently lost the Euros final to Italy in Wembley Stadium, the British women’s team had vowed to use the Tokyo Olympics as a platform to “take the knee” in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, after IOC bosses relaxed rules against political gestures at the competition.
“We are clear that taking the knee is an important symbol of peaceful protest against discrimination, injustice and inequality in society and we are glad that the IOC have acknowledged the importance of this form of freedom of expression,” coach Riise had said prior to the Olympic tournament kicking off.
“We want to show to everyone this is something serious. It’s still happening. What a way to do it, on an Olympic stage,” player Demi Stokes had concurred, saying that it was “the people that don’t have a voice that we are standing up [kneeling down] for.”