Days after publicly complaining about the sub-par standards of accommodation at the Olympic village in Paris, after he failed to make the 200m backstroke final last Wednesday, Italy’s 100m backstroke gold medallist swimmer Thomas Ceccon has found out his own way of dealing with the heat and fatigue in the French city.
Sporting a pair of Italy crested shorts, Ceccon was spotted sleeping in a park, and the image of Italian taking a nap on a white towel under a tree in the park was posted by the Saudi Arabia rower Husein Alireza.
Ceccon joined a growing list of athletes, including Coco Gauff, Ariarne Titmus and Assia Touati, complaining about the facilities at the Olympic Village, and claimed that there was no air conditioning in the village while the food was also bad. Ceccon said that he struggled to get a nap in the afternoon due to the heat and the noise in the afternoon.
“Many athletes move for this reason: it’s not an alibi or excuse, it’s the reality of what perhaps not everyone knows. Usually, when I’m at home, I always sleep in the afternoon: here I really struggle between the heat and the noise.”
Temperatures have soared in both Paris and Chateauroux, the two main Olympic Games venues.
Despite his protest over the living conditions at the Olympic village, Ceccon managed to win the 100m backstroke gold on Monday for his second medal of the Games. He had earlier picked a bronze in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay event.
After defending her Olympic gold medal in the 400m freestyle, Aussie swimmer Titmus felt she could have broken the world record had she been staying in better accommodation.
“It probably wasn’t the time I thought I was capable of, but living in the Olympic Village makes it hard to perform,’ she admitted in an interview after the race. It’s definitely not made for high performance, so it’s about who can really keep it together in the mind,” said Titmus.
Organisers believed the design of the 2,807 ‘self-cooling’ apartments would make air conditioning redundant – but they have been proved wrong. The Paris Olympics organising committee cited sustainability as the primary reason for opting for cardboard beds. The mattresses and cardboard frames are 100 per cent recyclable with the bed bases made from recycled cardboard.
Even before the Games started, several contingents had expressed their concerns about the weather in Paris after the organisers said that they would shun air conditioning to cut the carbon footprint of the event.
The Indian government had sent 40 portable air conditioners for the country’s athletes in the Games Village.