The Russian team has arrived in Tokyo and had their first training sessions. Valentina Rodionenko told R-Sport there are certain organizational issues in the village, especially where it comes to transportation and COVID-19 testing:
“Our team is fine, they got settled in their apartments fine. Overall, today was a very difficult day, the first day, the organizers are still running around frantically, and not everything is working the way they want. We hope that starting tomorrow everything will be fine. Rooms in the Olympic Village are apartments that are, you could say, unfinished. There’s a bed, a bed stand, and that’s it. It usually don’t get better at the Olympics. But it’s all fine with us. Guys and girls live two people per room. It’s tolerable, it’s fine. The only issue is that the toilet [in each apartment] is in the same room as the shower and there’s only one such bathroom per six people. You can imagine – such a tiny room and everyone has to wait in line to use it. Also, it’s extremely hot here and you have to take showers multiple times a day. For us, this is eve more awful than the issues with the transportation.”
“The only complaint about the organizers was that there was a mix-up with the buses, so, the women’s team left for their practice 40 minutes later, and the men’s team – an hour later. We had to sit there and wait. But besides that, everything’s fine. Of course, there are issues with taking saliva samples. But we organized everything, sent our coaches there and got tubes with our accreditation numbers for each day of the competition, so we won’t have to stand in line every morning. When we came back from the practice today, there was a block-long line, it’s terrible. Teams are still arriving and the saliva testing happens every day.”
Rodionenko was happy with the conditions at the training gyms:
“The training conditions are great. All the equipment is new, everything’s perfect. We enjoyed training today. We looked a bit at our main competitors – Chinese and American gymnasts. It’s a competition, so whatever happens happens. We’re prepared to compete with both the Americans and the Chinese.”
Some other athletes and coaches were less happy than Rodionenko with the accomodations at the Olympic village. Tennis players showed that they don’t quite fit in the bathroom – the rooms are clearly made for shorter people.
And the head of the Russian fencing team Ilgar Mamedov said the Olympic village apartments were like in the Middle Ages:
“This is my ninth summer Olympics, I haven’t missed one since Seoul-1988, and I’ve never seen such conditions. To put it mildly, we are surprised by the conditions in the village where, supposedly, everything should be aimed at making the athletes feel comfortable. It’s not a 21st century Japan. The Olympic village is truly the Middle Ages. I don’t care about it for myself but I really pity my athletes.”
“The walls are made of plasterboard for some reason. The rooms are more like closets in size. I don’t even know if my room has a window. Bathrooms are the size of airplane bathrooms, about 1.5 square meters. And one such bathroom is for the whole team. Can you imagine how athletes will use it? There will be a line, it’s not normal. Electric outlets are on the opposite wall, we have to use extension cords across the room. It’s a mystery how to connect to the internet, there are no clear instructions anywhere. And I’m not even talking about beds…”
The opinion on beds made out of cardboard (in order to recycle them easily after the Olympics) were somewhat divided. A few days ago, some news reported that the beds were quite fragile and this was on purpose in order to deter athletes from having sex in the village and potentially spreading COVID-19 this way (as if it is only possible to have sex in the bed). Rhys McClenaghan went viral all around the world with his video in which he repeatedly jumps on the bed and claims the beds are very sturdy:
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They are going to take their own samples? How’s that even allowed?