Scottish Swimming has called in police and apologised after an open online workout with athletes including Olympic medallist Duncan Scott was hijacked with "disturbing content".
The organisation had invited people to join a virtual workout with its national squad members on Tuesday morning but the link was "compromised with abusive content".
A statement read: "Scottish Swimming sincerely apologises for the incident that happened during an organised Zoom event, where the aquatics community were invited to work out alongside our performance athletes.
Sadly our link for this mornings ZOOM workout has been compromised due to abusive content. We are sorry for the inconvenience and we will look to reschedule in the near future. https://t.co/c5WQwczS49 — Scottish Swimming (@ScottishSwim) April 14, 2020
"At the end of last week we shared information about the workout across our social media platforms, asking those interested in participating to log into a link that was shared publicly this morning.
"Unfortunately the link was 'Zoom-bombed' with disturbing content shared with circa 300 people that had signed in to the event.
"The video was immediately shut down and the incident referred to the police and their cyber-crime unit. We apologise to everyone involved and deeply regret the outcome of today's event.
I am in disgust 😡 Our open invite WOD cancelled due to a sick individual. I am sorry for what everyone and more importantly what the kids that were apart of the WOD had to see!! @ScottishSwim have released further statements below... https://t.co/q5XjcEtcI6 — Duncan Scott (@Dunks_Scott) April 14, 2020
"Scottish Swimming will continue to support and engage with our aquatic community during this time in isolation and have started a full review of the process undertaken today along with consideration of security measures across all platforms, in order to put in place measures to prevent any further incidents of this nature happening again.
"At a time when the aquatics community was pulling together and supporting one another so positively, it is very upsetting to have a minority cause upset and distress during the lockdown."
Sorry to everyone involved! There are some awful people in the world, who do some disturbing things, who ruined what was set to be a fun workout! For all those involved please head to @ScottishSwim for some more information ⬇️ https://t.co/AvmfcIzxZz — Aimee Willmott (@aimee_willmott) April 14, 2020
Scott, who collected Scotland's record medal haul at an individual Commonwealth Games in 2018, wrote on Twitter: "I am in disgust. Our open invite WOD cancelled due to a sick individual. I am sorry for what everyone and more importantly what the kids that were apart of the WOD had to see!!"
Aimee Wilmott, another Olympic medallist, added: "Sorry to everyone involved! There are some awful people in the world, who do some disturbing things, who ruined what was set to be a fun workout!"
