Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC)'s swimming commentator Byron MacDonald apologized on-air on Thursday afternoon after remarking that a defeated Chinese swimmer "died like a pig" in the 4x200m freestyle relay against Canada.

"I would like to take a moment to apologize for a comment that I made last night after the women's relay," MacDonald said on CBC's Olympic broadcast. "I was referring to a swimmer's performance, and not to them as a person. Needless to say, there was no disrespect intended, and I'm very sorry."

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The commentator sparked outrage after saying on-air: "The little 14-year-old from China dropped the ball, baby. Too excited, went out like stink, died like a pig. Thanks for that."

Chinese Ai Yanha, 14, raced on the relay's second leg in 1:57.79, just 1.61 seconds behind Canada's representative Taylor Ruck. The swimmer from China finished in fourth place.

Both Chinese and Canadian viewers expressed disappointment over MacDonald's comment.

"From this Olympic, we can see that many countries have a nasty attitude to China. But that also shows that our country is growing, and they feel uneasy because of that," a Chinese user posted on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, according to South China Morning Post.

"So sorry China. Many of us Canadians are very upset over this. The announcer should apologize," a user from Canada posted on Twitter.

Meanwhile, MacDonald's broadcasting network CBC also issued an apology online and on-air on Wednesday night after facing backlash on social media.

"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 tweeted.

"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 our followers on social media," Chuck Thompson, CBC spokesman told Postmedia on Thursday.

TagsRio Olympics, Rio 2016, olympics 2016, CBC, china, Byron MacDonald, Ai Yanha, Chinese swimmer