Partying Olympic athletes blow off steam in Tokyo by trashing hotel rooms, stealing team mascots. Was it the Canadians?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/08/2021 (1524 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TOKYO—This column is about drinking, so let’s start with the Aussies. According to the Herald Sun newspaper of Melbourne, members of the Australian rugby and rowing teams went a bit wild in the athletes village Friday and Saturday nights, trashing hotel rooms. In addition, at least 10 Aussies had to self-isolate to be tested for COVID-19, because there was forbidden mixing between teams, if you know what I think I mean.

“Afterwards we became aware of that and that a few of our athletes had been mixing with other athletes not in the heat of the party but in places … outside of our direct allotment,” Australian chef de mission Ian Chesterman told reporters. “That’s clearly something we don’t encourage.”

It was a party all right. Aussie village mascots were reportedly stolen — an emu and a kangaroo — and later returned. The fibreglass moose Canada brings to every Olympics was taken for a walkabout, which pretty much happens every Games. A mess was left in the streets.

To complete the podium trifecta, members of the Australian rugby sevens teams were so drunk and belligerent on their flights home that Japan Airlines wrote to the Australian Olympic Committee, which is now investigating.

Anyway, this leads us to the Canadians, because the Australians apparently say they started the whole thing. The Australians say that’s who the police came to talk to. Asked about this, the Canadian Olympic Committee said, uh, maybe so.

“Canada has been asked by village officials to ensure Team Canada athletes are following all village noise rules,” COC chief sports officer Eric Myles said in a statement, responding to questions about the shenanigans.

“At every Games we try to strike a balance between ensuring athletes who are done competing can celebrate safely and ensuring they don’t disrupt athletes who are still competing. At these Games, however, we are focused on safety and ensuring COVID protocols are followed. We have let athletes know that after all the effort, now is not the time to put yourself, your teammates, other athletes and your communities back home at risk.”

Details were not forthcoming on the exact nature of the Canadian party-starting, but that statement essentially says some Canadians were rowdy enough that they violated COVID protocols, drew noise complaints, may have been involved in duelling drunken mascot theft and probably had a really fun time.

If this was going to happen — and it was definitely, 100 per cent, guaranteed, rock-solid lock of the week going to happen — at least it happened in the midst of one of the most protected and tested communities on Earth, right? Well, maybe. But yes, this was absolutely going to happen. In a normal Olympics, athletes who have finished their events hang around and get to blow off several years of steam. Things always go sideways in the back nine of an Olympics.

“Normally this is the red-alert time, because athletes are out in the streets, in bars, meeting people,” one Olympic official said. “But we haven’t worried about that. Even in a normal Olympics, they’re not drinking, they’re not partying in the village. It’s like university: You don’t drink during your exams.”

But after? This would explain the case of the stolen Humvee at the 2018 Games. Canadian ski cross athlete Dave Duncan, his wife Maja and ski cross coach Willy Raine were out at some bars not far from the Olympic Stadium and someone had left their big red Humvee running, and the Canadians decided to steal it for the short drive to the Olympic Village because they were cold. They were pulled over wearing red Team Canada jackets, red Team Canada vests, red Team Canada toques and red Team Canada boots. Luckily, nobody was hurt.

In Rio, with many options to blow off steam, American swimmer Ryan Lochte and three teammates decided to drunkenly smash in the door of a Brazilian gas station because they had to pee. Someone called the cops, they paid a fine, but Lochte told his mother he had been robbed, and the next thing you knew he was repeating the story on NBC, saying his teammates hugged the pavement as he stared down a mugger with a gun.

The story sank … fast.

During these Games, though, athletes haven’t had much of a chance to get rowdy, because they’re basically flown home the next day. So what you have is a built-in pressure release mechanism: athletes who have trained for an extra year, dealt with the pressure of the pandemic, flown in five days before competition, cleared the jet lag, tried to capture their best selves in one moment, and then get one night in the athletes village for their long-awaited chance to let loose before they have to fly home.

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Athletes think they’re invincible. The village is a collection of young people of every shape and size. They’re tested every day, and most are double vaccinated. Really, this was inevitable enough that we were only waiting for Australian rugby and rowing to finish.

“Now, there’s no place for them to blow off steam,” the Olympic official said. “At a certain point, people need to be human.”

The pandemic takes away a lot of what makes us human, though. With many safety rules that don’t make sense, the Games have counted 153 cases in the past seven days, versus 94 in the seven days before that. Just 27 athletes have tested positive, including half the Greek synchronized swimming team, but that presumably doesn’t count athletes who cut loose on their final night, picked up COVID and then flew home. The Aussies, bless them, arrive home to 14-day hard quarantines.

And Beijing will be the same, except run by the Chinese military. Let’s hope that science and the vaccines win, the globe recovers and maybe Paris 2024 can be the hopeful post-COVID Olympics, shining on a hill. It would be nice, after everything everyone has been through, to get back to being able to enjoy mascot-stealing again.

Bruce Arthur is a Toronto-based columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bruce_arthur