Italian gold medalist seen sleeping in park after complaining about Olympic Village conditions

The Olympic Village has faced controversy due to athletes’ complaints about unsatisfactory conditions, including uncomfortable cardboard beds and a lack of air conditioning, as previously reported by the Deseret News .

Italian swimmer Thomas Ceccon, gold medalist in the men’s 100-meter backstroke, has gone viral after being seen sleeping in a park outside, increasing the criticism surrounding Olympic Village.

Saudi rower Husein Alireza discovered Ceccon while taking a walk and found him curled up next to a bench on a sheet, according to Fox News .

This incident occurred a few days after Ceccon failed to qualify for the men’s 200-meter backstroke.

Too tired to compete

Ceccon attributed his performance in the 200-meter backstroke qualifiers to his inability to rest.

“It’s hard to sleep both at night and in the afternoon,” Ceccon said after the race, per Fox News. “Here, I really struggle between the heat and the noise.”

“There is no air conditioning in the village, it’s hot, the food is bad,” Ceccon added. “Many athletes move for this reason. It’s not an alibi or an excuse, it’s the reality of what perhaps not everybody knows.”

In an interview with Access Hollywood , Ceccon described the viral photo of him sleeping as “just a nap.”

The Italian Swimming Federation denied that Ceccon’s nap was related to the conditions in the Olympic Village, according to the Italian news agency ANSA .

ANSA also reported that another Italian swimmer, Gregorio Paltrinieri, criticized the conditions at the village, calling it “the worst I have ever experienced” and saying that “athletes are not safeguarded.”

Dr. Chris Winter, a specialist in sleep and athletic performance, told Today that poor sleeping conditions can negatively impact an athletes performance.

“If the athlete starts to believe that, ‘Oh, I’m sleeping so poorly. It’s loud in the Olympic Village, and my roommate snores, and this bed is so uncomfortable, and it’s hot because they’re not air conditioning particularly well,’ those things can impair their ability to perform,” Winter said.

Reason for conditions at Olympic Village

According to the Olympics , the Paris Olympic Village was constructed to meet environmental excellence requirements, such as maintaining a low carbon footprint within the goals of Paris’s Climate Plan.

These requirements led to decisions such as the cardboard beds and lack of air conditioning that athletes have raised concerns about.

“On the A/C, we’ve tried to find a balance in the design and fit-out of the Village between a long-term objective to create a sustainable neighbourhood; and a short-term responsibility to give high-performance athletes the best conditions to prepare,” a spokesperson for the Paris 2024 organizing committee told Today .

Solideo, the agency responsible for constructing the Olympic Village, designed the athletes’ residences to reduce heat without relying on air conditioning, using “specific materials, insulating façades, and underfloor cooling.”

“Together, they have been proven by a study to achieve a target temperature of 23-26° Celsius (73.4-78.8 Fahrenheit) at the hottest time of the day in a heatwave — a temperature that enables athletes to recover properly from competition,” the statement added.

In response to the uncomfortable conditions, many athletes have opted to bring their own air conditioning units and mattress pads.