While most athletes are having to make do with cardboard beds and non air conditioned rooms in the Paris Olympic Village, dozens of lucky competitors are enjoying life on a luxury cruise ship, 15,000km (9,300 miles) away .
A number of the surfers taking part in this year’s Games are staying on the Aranui 5 cruise ship off the coast of the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, 45 minutes from this year’s surfing venue in Teahupo’o.
Dubbed the “first-ever floating Olympic village”, the dual-purpose passenger and freighter ship can accommodate about 230 passengers in over 100 cabins.
It also features a Sky bar, dancing room, library, fitness room and a spa.
Many athletes have taken to social media to show off life inside the floating village, which has been described as a “party boat” and “better than Paris.”
Sharing an inside look into the ship, Japanese surfer Kanoa Igarashi revealed athletes have access to a 24-hour dining hall, gift shop, tattoo parlor, private bedrooms, and an activity area with a foosball and ping pong table.
“I think our athlete village in Tahiti is better than the actual one in Paris,” Igarashi shared in the video.
German surfer Tim Elter has also shown off the amenities, sharing a video of the breathtaking views from his cabin, where there is not a single cardboard bed in sight.
“We actually do have real aluminium bed frames, as you can see there. They are solid and stable,” he said as he tapped the bed frame.
“We got it better than the guys in Paris.”
Elter and Camilla Kemps have clearly been enjoying life at sea, sharing clips of themselves dancing to music on their balconies.
“Excitement through the roof,” Elter captioned one video of the pair on board the “party boat”.
New Zealand surfer Saffi Vette also joined in on the fun, sharing a clip of herself hanging out with the German competitors as they blasted tunes.
“Vibes are high here on our floating Olympic Village,” she captioned the video.
“When the Germans are staying above you in the Olympic village … They attached a speaker to a leg rope and swung it over your balconies,” she added in the clip.
The scenes are starkly different from those coming out of the Olympic Village in Paris, where athletes have complained about the “anti-sex” cardboard beds, vegan food options and a transport system which has left plenty stranded while trying to reach training venues and official Games locations.
Addressing the sleeping arrangements on TikTok, Aussie water polo star Tilly Kearns said the bed was “rock solid” while a teammate said “my back is about to fall off”.
US tennis champion Coco Gauff also shared a chaotic glimpse inside the Team USA living arrangements inside the village, revealing there are “10 girls, two bathrooms” in a video on TikTok.
More recently, Aussie swimming champ Ariarne Titmus admitted the “living in the Olympic Village makes it hard to perform.”
“It’s definitely not made for high performance, so it’s about who can really keep it together in the mind,” she said in a post race interview.
Outside of the sleeping arrangements, the food options – which have been widely reported to be dominated by a vegan diet – has also been criticised.
Speaking to The Times, British Olympic Association’s chief executive, described the food as “not adequate”, sharing team GB have been forced to fly in their own chef to help prepare meals.
“There are not enough of certain foods: eggs, chicken, certain carbohydrates, and then there is the quality of the food, with raw meat being served to athletes. They have got to improve it over the next couple of days dramatically.”
“Our athletes have decided they would rather go and eat in our performance lodge in Clichy, so we are having to get another chef to come over as the demand is far exceeding what we thought it would be.”
Aussie swimming great James Magnussen weighed in on complaints coming out of the village in a piece for News Corp newspapers.
“From our sample size thus far, this Olympics is showing that it may be one of the toughest environments we’ve seen to produce world record swims,” Magnussen wrote.
“The lack of world records boils down to this whole eco-friendly, carbon footprint, vegan-first mentality rather than high performance.
“They had a charter that said 60 per cent of food in the village had to be vegan-friendly and the day before the opening ceremony they ran out of meat and dairy options in the village because they hadn’t anticipated so many athletes would be choosing the meat and dairy options over the vegan-friendly ones.”
“The caterer had to rejig their numbers and bring in more of those products because surprise, surprise – world class athletes don’t have vegan diets.”
“It seemed Paris wanted to be eco first, performance second at the Games. I don’t know if that’s a political stance, or if it’s a cost stance, but I think in the future we need to look to other options because the Olympics is the pinnacle sporting event in the world.”
