The score at that time was 3-6, 6-4 and 4-1 in favor of Ruud. The young woman chained herself to the net at the Court Philippe-Chatrier in Paris with a chain around her neck. Her T-shirt had the caption ‘We have 1,028 days left’, with which she wanted to draw attention to the climate.
Four security officers released the girl and removed her from the premises. The match was resumed after a delay of fifteen minutes.
It is not the first time that a sports competition has been stopped because of climate action. This has happened before, especially in football.
For example, in mid-April, the Bundesliga match between Frankfurt and Freiburg was interrupted for a few minutes after two activists tied themselves to the goal posts. They wore t-shirts that read in German: “Last Generation – Stop the Fossil Fuel Madness”. A month earlier, a young man tied himself to a goalpost during the Premier League game between Everton and Newcastle.
And cycling is no exception. At the beginning of April, climate activist Wouter Mouton (44) attracted all the attention during the final sprint of the Tour of Flanders. A few weeks later, the same forty-something also rocked the final of the Belgian Cup in the name of the climate.