Triple gold medalist blasts Olympic village conditions at Paris 2024

Ariarne Titmus may have already won a gold medal at Paris 2024, but she says that is despite the difficult conditions at the Olympic Village.

The Australian is now a triple gold medallist after her two triumphs at Tokyo 2021 and has won five Olympic medals in total.

However, the 400m freestyle champion is not impressed with what the athletes are dealing with in Paris when it comes to their living conditions.

She won the 400m freestyle on Saturday, but was disappointed that she could not break her own world record in the process.

‘It probably wasn’t the time I thought I was capable of, but living in the Olympic Village makes it hard to perform,’ Titmus said on Sunday.

‘It’s definitely not made for high performance, so it’s about who can really keep it together in the mind.’

The cardboard beds in the Olympic village have come in for heavy criticism, with a number of athletes complaining about how uncomfortable the recyclable beds are, while the food being served has also proved unpopular.

Australian former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has spoken out about the problems and feels athletes will be badly hampered by the conditions.

‘There’s multiple factors that make village life far from ideal,’ Magnussen wrote in his column for the Australian Daily Telegraph. ‘It’s the cardboard beds, which can’t give you optimal sleep.

‘It’s the no airconditioning, which is going to play a bigger factor as the week goes. It was 20 degrees and raining yesterday. It’s going to be mid 30s in the coming days.

‘That’s going to play a factor and the Australian team having their own portable air conditioners will be a welcome relief.’

He added on the Matty & The Missile podcast: ‘There will be many athletes across the two weeks of competition who miss out on a medal… because they’re unsettled by this new environment.

‘We haven’t seen this at an Olympic games before. We haven’t had this amount of complaints about a village in Olympics history.

‘We saw again tonight great results in the pool but as far as times goes, they’re well off those world (record) marks.

‘I don’t think it’s a slow pool. It’s sleeping on cardboard beds… At the end of the day, it’s about who can overcome these setbacks, who can put these distractions aside.’

Australian Swimming head coach, Rohan Taylor, is not on board with the complaints, and says conditions are all part of the challenge.

‘The Olympics has always been a challenge. Every Olympics I’ve been a part of, every Olympic Games that you see, is a test of athletes’ ability to come here, compete and perform when it matters,’ he said.

‘It’s about how you manage yourself and whatever environments are presented, whatever the beds are, whatever the food is, everybody deals with it.’

‘The Olympics has always been this way and that’s the way it is. And that’s and that’s the beauty of it.’

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