Olympic athletes slam quarantine hotels

Not enough food. Inedible meals. No training equipment.

Some Olympic athletes unlucky enough to test positive for the coronavirus at the Beijing Olympics feel their quarantine conditions are making a bad situation much worse.

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“My stomach hurts, I’m very pale and I have huge black circles around my eyes. I want all this to end. I cry every day. I’m very tired,” Russian biathlon competitor Valeria Vasnetsova posted on Instagram from one of Beijing’s so-called quarantine hotels.

Her problem wasn’t with any symptoms of the virus - it was the food.

Vasnetsova posted a picture on Thursday of what she said was “breakfast, lunch and dinner for five days already” - a tray with food including plain pasta, an orange sauce, charred meat on a bone, a few potatoes and no greens.

She added she’d lost a lot of weight and “my bones are already sticking out.”

The quarantine hotels are increasingly the target of criticism from athletes and their teams, who are lobbying organisers for improvements.

There’s a lack of transparency, too, with only some virus-positive athletes forced into quarantine hotels where their teams don’t have access, while teammates in similar situations are allowed to isolate within the Olympic village.

The rules for athletes who test positive say those without symptoms go to a dedicated hotel for isolation.

Anyone who has COVID-19 with symptoms will go to a hospital. In both cases, they’ll be unable to compete until cleared for discharge.

Teams have started going public with criticism.

After Eric Frenzel, a three-time gold medalist in Nordic combined, tested