French pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie was reduced to tears after being booed on the podium while he received his silver medal.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach described the crowd's behaviour as "shocking" and "unacceptable at the Olympics".
Lavillenie had been booed by the crowd during Monday's competition, as he battled Brazilian Thiago Braz da Silva for gold, giving a thumbs-down gesture to the cameras as he prepared for an attempt.
After the medal ceremony, IAAF president Lord Coe , vice-president Sergey Bubka and Da Silva attempted to console Lavillenie, who simply wrote "no words" in his Twitter account of what happened.
Paula Radcliffe said:
"That is just wrong. Ashamed of the track and field crowd tonight. Cheer your own as loud as you like but never disrespect the others."
Rio 2016 chief spokesman Mario Andrada said:
"As citizens of Brazil and as sports fans, we don't think booing is the right attitude, even when you are in a one-to-one competition and a young Brazilian has the chance to beat the world champion.
"We plan to intensify our dialogue with Brazilian fans through social networks to make sure that we behave as fans in a proper and elegant manner, without losing the passion for sport." Former 400m world record holder Michael Johnson told BBC Sport :
"Those tears were tears of disappointment in this crowd. They should be ashamed. I can't let that go - it's not what competition is about. It's really a shame and I think that he was really hurt. To then boo on the medal stand having not learned the lesson to begin with...some don't know better, but some I talked to were saying 'that's not what you do'."
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