By Ian Bush

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – It’s no longer just performance-enhancing drugs that can get an athlete sent home early from the Olympics. Twitter is having the same effect.

One hundred forty characters and all that hard work down the drain.

Michel Morganella’s Swiss soccer team lost to South Korea, after which he went on a racist rant against the players and people from their homeland.

He apologized for what he calls a “huge error,” but has been sent home anyway.

And he’s not the only one: Voula Papachristou from Greece tweeted a comment mocking African immigrants.  Instead of going down in history for her triple-jumping prowess, she’ll instead be remembered for being the first twit to be banned from the games for a Twitter post.

Then there’s the newspaper reporter who blasted NBC for tape-delaying the events, tweeting a network executive’s email address as a call to action for fellow vexed viewers.  It appears that post got him suspended from Twitter for releasing what the site calls “private information.”