Other than its opening ceremony featuring one of the best contemporary metal bands performing what might well be the greatest musical opening act to any Olympics ever (which, to be fair, is a subject I could—and have—talk about at length), there hasn’t been all that much in the way of sheer epicness about this year’s Parisian-set games (Simone Biles’ triumphant return notwithstanding).
Instead, the focus seems to be on the funny, odd, or shoddy. Whether it’s the pollution in the Seine rising up from reported defeat like some sort of abominable sh*t-phoenix, the anti-sex cardboard beds in the Olympic Village, or the lack of proper AC forcing some athletes to sleep outside, it’s all felt a little bit loose and knockabout. Adding to this now is a story that is admittedly a year old, but which nevertheless compounds this picture for me: An Aussie news report on how the athletes are to leave the Olympic Village pretty much straight away after their specific event takes place. Now, to be fair, this was meant to apply to all athletes, not just Aussies—though there is something funny and … well, Aussie … about the party emphasis in their news story on it. Look:
As mentioned previously, that story is a year old, so I’m actually not sure whether that policy ended up being held up. Google being as useless as Google tends to be these days is not shedding all that much light on things at all. So I’m just going to go ahead assume it did end up being an Aussie-specific party ban.