At this point, Australia’s Olympic experience can only improve.
Nearly a third of the women’s water polo team, which arrived Monday in Rio de Janeiro and is considered a strong contender for a medal, is in quarantine because of a gastrointestinal illness players picked up in Rome. This comes on top of a series of unfortunate events — and the Games haven’t begun yet — in which: one of the country’s Paralympians was the target of an attempted robbery, athletes found that toilets in the Olympic Village could not pass a stress test, Andrew Bogut ripped the Olympic Village accommodations and, as they were learning that fire alarms in their building did not work, laptops and clothing were stolen from their quarters.
On Monday, Australian officials kept four of the squad’s 13 members isolated from the rest of the Australian Olympic team.
[Olympic boat ramp collapses in high winds]
“David Hughes [Australian chief medical officer for the team and the country’s sports commission] will keep a close eye on them, and they will stay in there for 48 hours until after they’re all cleared,” Kitty Chiller, Australia’s chef de mission, told reporters (via the Sydney Herald). “There will be no interaction between them and anyone in the village for the next 48 hours.”
Known as the Stingers, the team opens with a match Aug. 9 against Russia. The country’s water polo team won gold at the Sydney Olympics and bronze in the London and Beijing Games. The first competition for Australia’s athletes comes Wednesday, when the women’s soccer team plays Canada in Sao Paulo.
Chiller has been outspoken about the athletes’ difficulties and earned a sarcastic rebuke from Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, who said he almost felt “like putting a kangaroo in front of their building to make them feel at home,” after the toilets’ failed stress test. She was joined by Bogut on Monday, who tweeted a photo of him constructing a makeshift shower curtain so as not to “flood the place.”
Chiller has come under some criticism for the frequency of her press updates, with some in Australia calling for her to chill out after her advice for boaters on polluted Guanabara Bay. “Coming out of the water, it’s trying to not fall out of the boat and if they do fall out of the boat, keeping their mouth closed,” she said (via Australia’s Telegraph). “Our synchronized swimming team arrive [Tuesday], so I’m going to send them down to give them some hints on keeping their mouths closed under water.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/08/02/australias-bad-luck-continues-with-four-olympic-water-polo-players-in-quarantine/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_el-australia-745pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
