Tokyo Olympics: Britain’s Sarah Davies provides insight into athletes village in Instagram video

A British athlete has provided an insight into life at the ‘Lonely Games’, describing conditions in Tokyo’s athlete’s village as prison-like.

They might well be the biggest sports show on earth but they are also the Lonely Games … and that could be the greatest challenge of all.

Liz Cambage’s shock exit from the Tokyo Games is set to be the start of Australia’s Olympic dramas not the end of them.

Athletes who win gold in Tokyo will not simply beat their opponents — they will defeat dark voices inside their own minds triggered by their sterile, secluded surrounds.

There may be no voices from the stands in Tokyo but there is a different type of noise which must be blocked out. An internal one.

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Policemen walk past one of the entrances to the Olympic Village in Tokyo. Picture: AFP

Cambage’s withdrawal from the Olympic team primarily on the grounds that bubble life was effecting her mental health will be a relief for Australian management preparing to investigate several alleged bubble breaches as well as an ugly confrontation in the warm-up game against Nigeria.

Had she not withdrawn it is likely she would have been stood down by a management team trying to juggle the sensitivities of her mental health against the absolute priority of keeping the team Covid safe.

Liz Cambage won’t be the first athlete to crack under the strain of life in the Olympic bubble.

Olympic athletes have always existed in a bubble at the Games. That is essentially what the Olympic village is.

The problem is that they are now asked to exist in a bubble inside a bubble and that, for Cambage, was one bubble too many.

She is not alone. Nick Kyrgios didn’t want to enter it. Serena Williams said bluntly “I don’t feel like going’’ despite her past experienced being “wonderful.’’

A worker sweeps in front of a banner for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Haneda Airport. Picture: Getty Images

The most severely challenged athletes in Tokyo might well be the ones who have been to other Olympics and been drenched by the uplifting spirit of the rich flavours of the Olympic village because they will know what they are missing.

Those memories will seem a chastening world away from British weightlifter Sarah Davies’s description of the current village.

“We have what we call the prison yard,” she said. ”So we can literally walk up and down this stretch between the hours of 7am and 10am, and that is the only time we‘re allowed outside. Genuinely, feels like we’re in prison. But, hey, it is what it is … Welcome to Olympic Games, Covid edition.”

Indeed.

Make no mistake, there will be more dramas to come.

The Olympic rings float in Tokyo Bay as the opening ceremony next Friday edges closer. Picture: Akio Kon

Normally at Olympics, the hi jinks starts in the closing days as corks start popping off bottles when athletes finish their schedules.

The final days of Games have seen stories like washing machines being thrown of balconies, drunken beach parties and glass doors kicked in along with more good natured antics.

But this time, it’s a different type of breach and one which could surface any time.

Stress levels are soaring already in our Covid-challenged world.

Temperaments are fraying due to claustrophobic Covid protocols. Lids could pop off bubbling saucepans before, during or after competition.

A part of Tokyo Olympics Equestrian Park, which will function without spectators in an attempt to avoid the spread of coronavirus. Picture: Getty Images

A first glance, Alex de Minaur’s Olympic withdrawal after a positive COVID-19 test and the alleged disciplinary breaches of Cambage are not related.

But they are very much intertwined because they spell out the same theme … the threat of Covid is real.

Wash your hands. Keep your distance. Do the right thing.

De Minaur did nothing wrong and still got it.

There are no second chances.

Get it and you are gone — instantly — and if your team has been around you they might have to go as well.

The challenges of the Lonely Games are everywhere.

Originally published as Tokyo Olympics: Britain’s Sarah Davies provides insight into athletes village in Instagram video