“I just lost it in the moment.”
The Australian swimming coach whose celebration went viral on Monday has apologised for his actions.
Dean Boxall couldn’t contain his emotion after he watched swimmer Ariarne Titmus win gold in the 400 metre freestyle ahead of fierce American rival and pre-race favourite Katie Ledecky.
Boxall went crazy in the stands, punching and kicking the air, and thrusting his hips against a perspex barrier.
However he also tore off his face mask and threw it across the stands of the aquatic centre, and it is for this that the Australian coach has apologised.
Speaking to Australia’s Seven Network, he said: “I need to apologise, actually, because I tore my mask off and it ripped. I just lost it in the moment.”
Ariarne’s coach Dean Boxall sums it up perfectly! #TokyoTogether https://t.co/Kvww2jpSFy
— AUS Olympic Team (@AUSOlympicTeam) July 26, 2021
Boxall has been working with Titmus for six years, and he explained that seeing her “execute to perfection” the plan they had to beat Ledecky was what made the win so special.
“It just came out,” he said. “It built up in the trials, it was coming through and then when I saw the race unfolding I couldn’t keep it in.”
Boxall told Australian media: “I think I went outside of my body.”
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Titmus wasn’t surprised at his reaction though.
She said: “That’s just the way Dean is. He’s very passionate about what he does and he becomes quite animated.
“He puts 100% into being a swimming coach and he’s sacrificed a lot of his family life with his kids and his wife for his job.”
