Byron MacDonald’s analysis of 14-year-old Ai Yanhan’s fourth place finish at the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay outraged viewers of CBC’s live Olympic coverage on Wednesday

Canadian broadcaster CBC has been forced to apologize after one of its commentators said a 14-year-old female Chinese swimmer 'went out like stink' and 'died like a pig' during a race.

Commentator Byron MacDonald thought his mic was turned off when he started to dispense some of his own opinions at the end of the women's 4x200m freestyle relay final.

MacDonald, who was brought on board CBC's commentary team to provide 'color' could be heard saying: 'That little 14-year-old from China dropped the ball, baby. Too excited, went out like stink, died like a pig. Thanks for that.'

Chinese swimmer Ai Yanhan, 14, swam the second leg of the relay in 1:57.79 — 1.61 seconds slower than Canada's Taylor Ruck, allowing the Canadians to close the gap on China.

Viewers across Canada were quick to react online after being shocked by the tone and the language used

Emmett Macfarlane tweeted, 'Did the CBC announcer just say the 14-year-old swimmer from China 'died like a pig'???? The idiot didn't realize they were still on the air.'

Ai Yanhan of China in the Women's 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay Final was described as: 'That little 14-year-old from China dropped the ball, baby. Too excited, went out like stink, died like a pig.'

Criticism on Twitter came thick and fast against Byron MacDonald with many calling him out

Twitter users did not hold back when the heard how insensitive Byron Macdonlad was being

Another twitter user, Sarah Paradis, wrote: 'Wow #ByronMacDonald. You represent the CBC and Canada and make us all sound like a bunch of racists. #disgusted.'

Soon after, Scott Russel who was hosting CBC's broadcast apologized on-air for MacDonald's comment, saying: 'We apologize the comment on a swim performance made it to air. It was an unfortunate choice of words, we're sorry it happened.'

CBC ended up apologizing more than 90 times to people who had tweeted in response to the remark

Fellow commentator, Scott Russel, had to make an apology on MacDonald’s behalf

CBC then copied and pasted their apology to more than 90 other twitter users who complained about MacDonald's comments

The network was also quick to apologize and released a statement.

'We sincerely regret that these statements were made, and that they were allowed to go to air. We moved quickly last night to apologize to our viewers on-air and to our followers on Social media. To be clear, Byron's comments were related to the swimmer's performance, not to her as an individual. That said, they were inappropriate and an unfortunate choice of words and Byron is very sorry for what he said. '

On Thursday afternoon, MacDonald apologized on-air and attempted to qualify his remark by stating he didn't mean for it to be construed as a personal attack.