TOKYO • No meeting fans, no eating out and no sightseeing - life in the Tokyo Olympic bubble could be "challenging" for athletes, the first team to arrive in Japan have warned.
Australian softball head coach Laing Harrow has said his players have been bingeing on Netflix and hitting the gym in a bid to "break the boredom" after landing in Japan on June 1.
He added that the players "seem to be in a very good headspace", despite the severe restrictions.
But he warned that other teams could find life difficult, with cabin fever a potential risk for athletes who do not come prepared.
"It is challenging," he said from the team's base in Ota city, 100km north of Tokyo. "If it's cards or games that you can play on phones or whatever, you do need to break the boredom up a little, because there is a fair bit of downtime."
Harrow said his 20 players and nine staff - who were all vaccinated before leaving Australia - are glad to be training again after spending their first three days cooped up in the hotel.
They have played a series of practice games against Japanese teams, at a venue around a 10-minute bus ride from their hotel.
"We're at the grounds for a good five, six hours. That takes up a fair chunk of the day," he said.
But he also said it was disappointing that the team are barred from meeting Japanese fans.
The only interaction they have with locals, he said, is when government officials come to their hotel every morning to test for the virus.
"It is a shame, because we've been to Ota city a couple of times and it's always great to interact with the locals," he said. "But we can't do anything about it. We just have to maintain this bubble."
The team are restricted to three floors of their hotel, and have their own gym, dining room and meeting room. They must enter and exit the hotel through a special door, and have a lift reserved for them.
One athlete who may not be in such a bubble is their compatriot Mack Horton, the Olympic 400m freestyle swimming champion.
The 25-year-old will not be defending his title in Tokyo after failing to qualify at the Australian trials yesterday, stunned by Elijah Winnington, who swam the world's fastest time this year.
Horton, who beat China's Sun Yang for the title in Rio, called him a "drug cheat" and then refused to stand on the podium with him at the 2019 world championships, has been struggling for form.
He gave it his all, but his 3min 43.92sec was not enough. He was narrowly in front at the 300m mark, but Winnington stormed back to win in a sizzling 3:42.65 with Jack McLoughlin (3:43.27) pipping Horton for second. Only the top two qualify.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
