British man who threw bottle at Bolt found guilty

A mentally ill British man who shouted abuse at Usain Bolt and threw a beer bottle on the track at the start of the men's Olympic 100 metres final was found guilty of a public order offence today.

Ashley Gill-Webb, 34, shouted "Usain I want you to lose, Usain you are bad, you are an arsehole" at the Jamaican sprinter in the minutes before the race on Aug. 5 last year, a key moment of the London Games.

As 80,000 fans in the packed stadium fell silent and all eyes were fixed on the competitors in the starting blocks, Gill-Webb looked over each shoulder to check no one was looking at him, hid behind a group of spectators and lobbed the bottle at the track, video evidence showed.

"I am sure that he was at that point acting rationally and wrongly and that he intended to cause harassment, alarm or distress to the competitors, and accordingly, he is guilty," said judge William Ashworth at Stratford Magistrates' Court in east London, a short distance from the Olympic Stadium.

The court had heard that Gill-Webb, who suffers from bipolar disorder, was in the throes of a manic episode at the time.

The crux of the legal case was whether, despite his condition, he acted with the intention to cause distress to others.

Ashworth found Gill-Webb guilty of a charge of behaving in a threatening and disorderly way "with intent to cause the 100 metres finalists harassment, alarm or distress ... thereby causing spectators present at the Olympic Park harassment, alarm or distress".

He will be sentenced at a later date. The maximum penalty he could face would be six months in jail and a fine.

Gill-Webb did not have a ticket for the 100 metres final but had somehow made his way to an exclusive seating area where he mingled with members of the Dutch Olympic team in orange tracksuits.