The final of the men’s Olympic hockey descended into a scuffle after Dutch player Duco Telgenkamp celebrated the winning goal by ‘shushing’ in the face of the German goalkeeper.
Following a 1-1 draw in regulation time, the gold medal match in Paris headed to a shootout to decide the winner.
After a series of saves from Dutch keeper Pirmin Blaak, it was Telgenkamp who fired past German keeper Jean-Paul Danneberg to hand the Netherlands their first men’s gold medal since 2000.
However, the post-match celebrations quickly took an ugly turn as Telgenkamp rushed towards Danneberg and performed a ‘shushing’ gesture directly in his opponent’s face.
German player Niklas Wellen, in particular, took issue with the gesture and furiously raced to confront Telgenkamp while other Dutch players celebrated around them.
Dutch player Floris Middendorp moved to prevent Wellen from reaching Telgenkamp, with the latter continuing to taunt his opposition by sticking his tongue out.
And as a scuffle broke out between both sides, officials were eventually forced to step in to curtail the pushing and shoving.
In the aftermath of the incident, Telgenkamp apologised for his celebration, which was brought on by Danneberg’s pre-match comments, in which he claimed the Dutch were afraid of his German side.
‘In hindsight, I shouldn’t have gone to him. I regret that. I also apologise,’ he said. ‘I should have let it go and it wasn’t very smart.
‘But it’s also a bit the nature of the beast. I can be very cool-headed, but I can also let myself go. Is that part of it?
‘He affected me personally. Sports are not business, it doesn’t take much to be provoked. That’s how I go into the match. I felt a bit offended.’
German forward Christopher Ruhr, meanwhile, suggested his team deserved to win the match and labelled the Dutch ‘lucky’ in walking away with the gold medal.
‘We deserved to win the gold medal. It was an incredibly close match that came down to the shoot-out,’ Ruhr said.
‘The Dutch team had the luck today, but our overall performance was strong. I think it is phenomenal that we made it to two finals at major sports events and won major knockout games.‘
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