Day 11 of the Olympics saw new victories and new embarrassments, with some athletes receiving gold medals and others getting bad food.
Food with worms
Superstar swimmer Adam Peaty has come under fire for the quality of food on offer at the Athletes’ Village, less than a fortnight after Team GB began boycotting the restaurant inside the stadium.
Peaty won a silver medal in the 100m breaststroke before finishing an agonising fourth in the men’s 4×100 medley relay. Like other athletes competing in the Olympics, Peaty is staying at the athletes’ village in Paris.
All meals are provided by the organisers and there is a huge restaurant on site. But the British superstar has questioned the quality of the food preparation, leaving him furious with what he was served.
Peaty claims the quality of the food is having a negative impact on the results, and condemned the organisers’ promise to make 60 per cent of all meals meat-free and a third plant-based. He said:
The catering isn’t good enough for the level the athletes are expected to perform. We need to give the best we possibly can. Tokyo the food was incredible. Rio was incredible. But this time around? There wasn’t enough protein options, long queues, waiting 30 minutes for food because there’s no queuing system. The narrative of sustainability has just been pushed on the athletes. I want meat, I need meat to perform and that’s what I eat at home, so why should I change? I like my fish and people are finding worms in the fish. It’s just not good enough. The standard, we’re looking at the best of the best in the world, and we’re not feeding them the best.
Team GB had previously boycotted the Village over food in the first week of the Olympics. But organisers insist they take the athletes’ concerns seriously. They have also defended the work of their catering partner, saying extra staff and suppliers have been brought into the Village.
New world record set
Following her stunning victory in the women’s 800 metres on Monday, Keely Hodgkinson told ITV News that she now believes breaking the world record, which has been held for 40 years, is “possible.”
When asked what she plans to do with her future, the 22-year-old said “there’s a whole world record to try and break” and added that she would “love to try and do it.” She also said:
Why not? I think with everything we’ve had in advancements in track and field – the science behind how we train, the shoe technology, the tracks – I think it’s really making it seem possible.
She told ITV News that she felt at home during the race because there were lots of family members, friends and British fans at the stadium in Paris. The previous record of 1 minute 53.28 seconds was set by Czech athlete Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983.
Medals in surfing events
Tahitian Kauli Vaast won the gold medal for France in the men’s event at Teahupo’o on Monday in a near-perfect final, leaving Australian tubing maestro Jack Robinson with silver.
American Caroline Marks added Olympic gold to her 2023 world title with an emphatic victory over Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb in the women’s final.
Brazil’s Gabriel Medina won the bronze medal in the men’s event, while Frenchwoman Johanna Defey finished third in the women’s event.
The 22-year-old Vaast, who grew up in Teahupo’o, Tahiti, and caught some of the best waves of all time on a perfect reef passage, quickly established his dominance and never gave up, thrilling spectators in boats in the channel and on shore.
Adding that he had lost his voice screaming back at local fans as he did a victory lap on a jet ski, Vaast said:
The dream came true. I can’t believe it right now but I just made history – for me, for all Tahitians, for Polynesia and France.
