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Rio de Janeiro - With the Rio Olympics barely begun, Australia is already in pole position for a gold medal in grizzling, with complaints ranging from inadequate shower curtains to a "cloudy" swimming pool.
As the whining from the Aussie camp reaches the pitch of a Zika-bearing mosquito, AFP Sports looks at the top five Olympic objections from the land Down Under.
WATERY WALLS
Australia has led the way in highlighting problems with accommodation at the athletes' Village, going so far as to arrange "stress test" involving mass toilet flushing. "Water came down walls, there was a strong smell of gas in some apartments and there was 'shorting' in the electrical wiring," an Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) statement said. Rio's mayor Eduardo Paes joked he'd give the Aussies a kangaroo to make them feel better, then AOC delegation chief Kitty Chiller said she'd rather he send a good plumber before the pair kissed and made up for the cameras.
LUXURY LODGING
Australian basketballer Andrew Bogut still had concerns about the accommodation though, airing his complaints in a series of tweets with the hashtag #IOCLuxuryLodging. "At #IOCLuxuryLodging we believe a bed is not vital for sleep. Fine tuned athletes can sleep standing up," the seven-foot (2.13m) centre tweeted. "#IOCLuxuryLodging will not comment on our delegates penthouse villas in downtown Rio," he added. Bogut, who recently completed a multi-million dollar move to the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, also tweeted a picture of himself "putting together a shower curtain so we can shower and not flood the place."
SOUPY POOL
Michael Bohl, one of Australia's leading swim coaches, refused to let his charges train in the main training pool at Barra da Tijuca because the water looked "cloudy" and "soupy". "That pool looked really cloudy,” Bohl told reporters. "Rather than risk getting eye or ear or nose infections or anything we just thought we’d move them in here (the competition pool). It was very soupy looking."
SPLISH SPLASH
In further drama for the Aussie swimmers, Fairfax Media reported 400m hopeful Mack Horton's training was disrupted when China's Olympic champion Sun Yang kept splashing him. Horton, 20, reportedly "needed all his patience" to avoid rising to Sun's baiting. China team manager Xu Qi denied there was any tension, telling the state-run Xinhua news agency: “It is fake news - Sun Yang and the Australian swimmers are very good friends."
PINK BRICK BANDIT
Australians have raised security concerns in Rio, including thefts at the Village during a fire evacuation. A Channel Nine television crew also hit trouble at Copacabana Beach just an hour after landing in the Olympic city, when a cross dresser armed with what was thought to be a brick in a pink handbag attempted to rob them. "There was a group of transvestites and it all happened in a flash," reporter Christine Ahern told Melbourne radio. "One came straight for my cameraman Glen and that’s when security intervened, but he did get clocked (hit) on the head with a handbag, which had a brick or something in it as it was pretty hard."
