People are being downright unkind to an Ethiopian swimmer, body-shaming him for having what, in one of the more charitable comments, is called a dad bod.Robel Kiros Habte competed in the men’s 100-meter freestyle heats on Tuesday and finished last in the three-swimmer heat.

Darren Rovell

✔@darrenrovell

In yesterday’s 100m freestyle prelims, Ethiopia’s Robel Habte swam so slow he slipped off the screen

Overall, he finished last among the 59 competitors in the eight heats with a time of 1 minute 4.95 seconds. Habte confessed that his personal best was 59.08 seconds; Australia’s Kyle Chalmers won his heat with a time of 47.9 seconds.

Ecadf, an Ethiopian news site, called him “out of shape.” Others coldly called him “Robel the Whale.” Habte is 5 feet 9 and weighs 179 pounds. Chalmers, for instance, is 6-4 and weighs 194.

Jai Bednall

✔@jaibednall

First cheer at the pool goes to Ethiopia’s Robel Habte. Not quite Eric the Eel but close.

(Eric “the Eel” Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea completed the 100-meter freestyle in 1:52.72 during the Sydney Games.)


And they’re off. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

And still others noted that Habte is the, ahem, son of the president of the country’s swimming federation.

Zecharias Zelalem @ZekuZelalem

‘s . 59th place at . With him is the swim federation president who’s HIS DAD.

Whatever brought him to Rio, the 24-year-old college student was a crowd favorite and was pretty happy just to be there.

“I wanted to do something different for my country, that’s why I chose swimming,” he told Reuters. “Everybody, every day you wake up in Ethiopia, you run. Not swimming. But I didn’t want to run, I wanted to be a swimmer. It didn’t matter where I finished.”