- Webster in Paris
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- Paris 2024
Why Australian athletes should be the last to whinge about the Olympic Village
Paris: Cardboard beds. Wafer-thin mattresses. Not enough bathrooms. Not enough meat. No air-conditioning. Buses without air-conditioning going to the wrong venues.
Greetings from the Gulag otherwise known as the athletes’ village, where complaining has become a new Olympic sport – although not entirely without justification.
In the pursuit of making these Games as green as possible, Paris organisers have forgotten why we’re all here: to marvel at and admire those pursuing athletic perfection while we hoover up as many French pastries as humanly possible in the press tribune.
High-performing athletes need proper sleep. They need to be cool. They need decent food. They need protein. They need meat.
The unthinkable decision from Games organisers to make 60 per cent of food served in the dining hall vegan to reduce the carbon footprint generated by meat, dairy and cheese reveals a disturbing lack of knowledge about what fuels a competitive athlete.
So far, we’ve seen competitors either leaving the village to find alternative accommodation at their own expense or doing what most people do these days when they want to make a point: whinge on social media.
Australian athletes have enough food to feed a small army in their exclusive section of the athletes’ village.Credit: Getty Images
“I’m the only one left really,” America’s tennis sensation and flag-bearer Coco Gauff said after the rest of the tennis players abandoned her and found a fancy hotel.
After winning the 400m freestyle, Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus blamed her inability to break the world record on village life.
“It probably wasn’t the time I thought I was capable of, but living in the Olympic Village makes it hard to perform,” Titmus told reporters. “It’s definitely not made for high-performance, so it’s about who can really keep it together in the mind.”
If there’s one group of athletes who shouldn’t complain too loudly, it’s those in the Australian team.
The Australian Olympic Committee has spent considerable money on making their corner of the village as conducive to “high-performance” as possible.
A platoon of nutritionists, chefs and baristas has been brought to Paris to ensure their dietary needs are met. No Australian athlete needs to enter the dining hall, let alone force down a pretend T-bone as they desperately try to hit their macros.
Australian athletes have their choice of mattress toppers to soften their cardboard beds.Credit: Eddie Jim
An official showed me via WhatsApp on Wednesday the “residents’ centre” exclusive to Australian team members. There’s enough food to feed a small army, including imported avocados.
The AOC learned valuable lessons from the Tokyo Games in 2021 when access to the dining hall was restricted because of COVID-19 biosecurity measures.
To the surprise of officials, separating athletes from the rest of the village improved performance – Tokyo was our equal-best gold-medal haul – so they introduced something similar for Paris.
As for the beds, athletes have those comfy mattress toppers if they like, although others arranged for their own mattresses to be brought in.
Are the bedrooms too hot? I’m told very few in the Australian team have turned on the portable air-conditioning units bought by the AOC.
As for the rest of the gripes, we get it. The Olympics are a blast, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but they can be a dysfunctional pain-in-the-backside as you get from one end of a busy city to another.
Those athletes who can rise above the small inconveniences are the ones who usually triumph.
France’s new Papa Smurf
The Paris La Défense Arena is normally the home of rugby team Racing 92, but is the makeshift venue for the swimming.
On Wednesday night, it felt more like a nightclub, as thumping dance music provided the soundtrack for one of the most anticipated nights of the meet.
Australians might have been there to watch Mollie O’Callaghan (100m freestyle), Zac Stubblety-Cook (200m breaststroke), and Kyle Chalmers (100m freestyle), while Team USA supporters were there to watch Katie Ledecky (1500m freestyle) create history, but the French faithful were focused on one man.
French superstar Leon Marchand celebrates after his golden double.Credit: Getty Images
Leon Marchand has replaced the almost-naked Papa Smurf from the opening ceremony to become the French face of these Games and he was attempting the rarest of feats: winning two individual gold medals on the one night after winning the 400m individual medley on Sunday.
After striding onto the pool deck to deafening chants for the 200m butterfly, Marchand mowed down Hungarian and defending champion Kristof Milak in the final few strokes to claim gold and a new Olympic record.
But could he do it two hours later in the 200m breaststroke?
This time, he dominated from the very start, holding off Stubblety-Cook to claim his third gold of the meet and claim another Olympic record.
Swimmers’ favourite billionaire
Spotted in the crowd was Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, who has a strong, maternal relationship with our leading swimmers because of the millions she’s thrown at them in the past 12 years.
Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart in the stands in Paris with eight-time Olympic medallist Dawn Fraser.Credit: AAP
There’s no bigger fan than Chalmers, who helped co-ordinate a group of 20 elite Australian swimmers to campaign against a portrait of Rinehart in the National Gallery by Archibald Prize-winning Indigenous artist Vincent Namatjira.
Chalmers was brave in defeat, claiming silver behind China’s Pan Zhanle, who claimed the first world record of the meet.
Rinehart was also foremost in Shayna Jack’s mind after she finished fifth in the 100m freestyle.
“My family’s in the stands, my partner Joel’s in the stands, and even Miss Rinehart’s out here supporting us,” she oozed.
The mining heiress will celebrate every gold medal winner in the sports she supports with a lavish river cruise once their competition ends.
Come hell or low water
There’s been plenty of debate about whether the pool is “slow” because it’s not deep enough.
What people mightn’t know is how shallow it was just a few days before competition started after 10 to 12 centimetres of water was accidentally drained out of the pool.
Several poolside sources have confirmed that a security guard hit the wrong button while leaving the venue. The next morning, the pool had to be topped up with fresh water and chemicals.
Tubby dives in
Hands off Australian Test captain Mark Taylor, who has been copping flak on social media for his diving commentary on Channel Nine, publisher of this masthead.
Taylor’s co-commentator, springboard diver Sam Fricker, leapt to his defence when I contacted him just before they went on air on Wednesday.
Former Australian cricket captain Mark Taylor has spent months boning up on diving.Credit: ninevms
“He’s done a massive amount of research,” he said. “He came in with a booklet full of numbers, scores and calculations for the ‘DD’ [degree of difficulty]. He’s also come to the pool several times to learn. We also met up many times before we even started commentating together, just to discuss diving. He’s put so much effort into knowing about the sport, and I’ve been impressed with his knowledge.”
THE QUOTE
“I don’t know how I did that.” – Jess Fox after defending her Olympic canoe single title won in Tokyo, just days after winning gold in the kayak single earlier this week.
THUMBS UP
The Parisian heat has been oppressive, which is an issue given this country’s apparent aversion to air-conditioning. But that hasn’t stopped crowds packing most venues and providing us with random and rousing renditions of La Marseillaise. A personal favourite: the crowd roaring at the table tennis after Felix Lebrun beat Swede Anton Kallberg. Who needs LeBron when you have a Lebrun?
THUMBS DOWN
Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson was furious about reports earlier this week that suggested he was losing the dressing-room. After the 2-1 loss to the USA, which included the man himself getting a yellow card, it only confirmed what many have suspected for some time: he’s no longer the man for the job.
It’s a big day in Paris for … Jason Day and Min Woo Lee as they play the first round of the golf competition at the challenging Golf National course.
It’s an even bigger day in Paris for … USA gymnast Simone Biles. After completing one of the truly great comebacks in modern sport when she led her country to gold in the team final, she backs up in the all-round on Thursday in front of a celebrity-packed crowd at Bercy Arena.
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