Italian gold medalist Thomas Ceccon is not happy with the living conditions for athletes at the Olympics. He blamed a disappointing loss in his second race on a lack of sleep and bad food.
It appears as though the 23-year-old decided to try and mix things up ahead of his final race of the Games.
Ceccon, a representative of Team Italy, won the 100M backstroke shortly after arriving to Paris and followed it up with a bronze medal on the 4x100M freestyle relay team. However, his hot start did not continue. He did not get another medal in either of his last two events.
In fact, Ceccon did not even make the final. Italy placed ninth in the 400 medley relay and he completely choked in the qualifying rounds of the 200M backstroke.
The latter was especially disappointing. Ceccon was supposed to compete for a gold medal in the 200 back, but didn’t even get a chance to swim for the podium.
He blamed his poor performance on the Olympic Village. Paris put an emphasis on being “green,” which incidentally created uncomfortable conditions during a major heatwave.
In the Village there is no air conditioning, it’s hot, the food is bad. Many athletes move because of this. It is not an alibi it is the pure chronicle of what perhaps not everyone knows.
— Thomas Ceccon
Not long after complaining about the lack of A/C, Ceccon decided to try and catch some ZZZs at a location that might make him more comfortable. Saudi rower Husein Alireza captured the Italian swimmer napping in the middle of the park at some point over the weekend.
Unfortunately, Ceccon’s unique nap location did not correlate to success at the Olympics. The initial bronze and gold medals, before the conditions complaint, were his only wins in Paris.
Nevertheless, it just goes to show that Team Italy (which apparently did not bring its own air conditioning units to France like the United States) is going through it. Thomas Ceccon would rather sleep on a towel in a park in the middle of the Olympic Village than in his own room.