Alright, so the Olympic Village isn’t exactly five star luxury. We’re all very aware of that by now. And for athletes there to play the fine sport of basketball, it’s a particularly tough time given that, y’know, most beds aren’t built to house literal giants.
And while the Olympics is strictly an “amateur” competition in the sense that athletes aren’t getting paid terribly much, that definitely doesn’t stop you from using the benefits of your multi-million professional contracts to help boost your comfort levels while in Rio.
The Australian Boomers and Opals might be slumming it with the rest of the athlete population in the village, whiling away the time by putting together shower curtains and such, but the stupidly high-paid US Men’s Basketball Team has taken a different approach to Olympic prep and accomodation. And instead of putting the superstar roster in with the rest of the athletes, they’ve all rented out a goddamned luxury cruise liner to stay on while they’re in Brazil.
Much like they did in Athens back in 2004, the men’s and women’s sides are being housed in a luxury cruise liner docked in the Port of Rio for the duration of the games, where their high-paid, very high-profile stars each get their own room with adequately sized beds, as well as all the amenities that go with it.
The men’s team arrived into Rio yesterday and checked into the boat (what a sentence) with stars like Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and Kyrie Irving all absolutely ~gushing~ over their lodgings.
Irving, in particular, could not contain his excitement at all.
“It’s good. We live life. Like when you go home, except on a boat.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily call it a cruise ship. It’s just a private environment for the USA basketball national team for women’s and men’s, our coaching staff.”
Yes. We are all very happy for you.
The 196-room cruise liner, quite bloody obviously, has about half the police in South America guarding it at all times.
The US Men’s team open their Olympic campaign (very) early Sunday morning Australian time against China. The women’s team faces Senegal at 1am Monday morning AEST.
Source: ABC News.
