FILE PHOTO: Fukuoka 2023 World Aquatics Championships - Artistic Swimming - Marine Messe Fukuoka Hall A, Fukuoka, Japan - July 17, 2023 REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo
ROME (Reuters) - Italian state broadcaster RAI said on Monday it was suspending two of its journalists over sexist and racist remarks during their commentary of the World Aquatics Championships in Japan.
While commentating on the female synchronised diving competition for internet streaming channel RaiPlay 2, Lorenzo Leonarduzzi and Massimiliano Mazzucchi made sexual allusions and comments about the divers' physical appearance.
The episode underscores how sexism still pervades Italian society and follows an incident earlier this month when a junior culture minister bragged in public about his many sexual conquests and praised male genitalia.
Last month, Sky Italia suspended two Formula 1 commentators for sexist comments about a young woman who randomly appeared in video during a link-up following the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
On Monday, among a series of off-colour remarks, the journalists exchanged comments on how "big" some of the divers were, while one of them added, "anyway they're all the same size in bed."
They made other, untranslatable vulgar jokes about women's willingness to have sex, and made fun of the way the Chinese speak Italian by mimicking their accent.
Following complaints from viewers and opposition politicians, RAI's chief executive Roberto Sergio said he had launched a disciplinary procedure and asked RAI's head of sport to send the commentators home from the Fukuoka championships.
Sergio said there was no place for "bar jokes" on public service television.
In a letter to daily Corriere della Sera, Leonarduzzi said he had not realised he was on air and his remarks did not reflect his true opinions.
The journalist is not new to controversy, having been criticised in 2020 for a sexist joke on air about the surname of an Estonian rally driver.
He was also reprimanded by RAI in 2018 after a Facebook post sending his birthday wishes to Adolf Hitler on April 20, the day the German dictator was born in 1889.
(Reporting By Gavin Jones; Editing by Christina Fincher)
