A spectator who threw a plastic bottle on the track moments before yesterday’s Olympic sprint final was arrested after he was punished by a Dutch judo champion standing next to him.

The incident happened as the world’s fastest men, including eventual 100-meter champion Usain Bolt of Jamaica, were lining up at the start in London’s Olympic Stadium.

Ashley Gill-Webb, a 34-year-old man from Cornmill Court, Leeds, was arrested last night inside the stadium on suspicion of causing a public nuisance, the Metropolitan Police said in an e-mailed statement. He’ll appear at Stratford Magistrates Court today, the police said.

World judo champion Edith Bosch of the Netherlands, who won a bronze medal in the 70-kilogram judo event last week, said on Twitter she had immediately taken action.

“A drunken spectator threw a bottle onto the track! I HIT HIM....unbelievable,” Bosch, 32, said on Twitter.

A video on the website of Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf shows a man, standing on the left of Bosch, throwing a bottle. Bosch then turns around, before the picture gets cut off.

Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London 2012 organizing committee, called yesterday’s turn of events “poetic justice.”

Coe, a double gold medalist in the 1,500-meters, told reporters at a press conference today: “I’m not suggesting vigilantism but it was actually poetic justice that they happened to be sitting next to a judo player,” he said.

“I think the expression is ippon,” he added, referring to a winning judo move.