US tennis star Coco Gauff reveals her teammates left Olympic Village for hotel over rooming situation
Ten’s a crowd.
Coco Gauff revealed that she’s the only Team USA women’s tennis player living inside the Olympic Village in Paris after a chaotic living situation forced the rest of her teammates to flee to a hotel.
Fresh off of leading her fellow Olympians as the flagbearer for Friday’s opening ceremony, Gauff gave a 7-second tour of the American women’s tennis players inside the $1.6 billion housing complex.
“10 girls, two bathrooms. #olympicvillage,” the 20-year-old tennis phenom wrote in her TikTok video on Saturday.
The video featured the Olympians doing their hair and makeup and getting dressed across a few rooms throughout the hectic suite.
Olympic Village spans across three cities north of Paris — Saint-Denis, Saint Ouen, and L’Île-Saint-Denis. The site was built to accommodate 14,250 Olympians over the 18-day event.
One social media user suggested the athletes should move to a hotel, which Gauff revealed some had done already.
“All the tennis girls moved to a hotel except me. So now just five girls, two bathrooms,” Gauff responded.
Gauff added that the rooms were meant for 8 people.
Several Olympians have shared their displeasure with the Paris Olympic Village including the cheap materials the Olympic Village used for furniture, including the “anti-sex” cardboard mattresses.
Gauff said she borrowed a mattress topper from the US Archery team to counter the thin polyethylene mattresses.
Gauff also said she and her roommates kept the room “very clean” for the “well-being of all of us.”
The video, which has been viewed over 535,000 times, was posted a day after Gauff shared flag-bearing duties with basketball star LeBron James.
James and Team USA basketball aren’t staying in the Olympic Village either.
“The last few times I’ve done the Olympics, we’ve spent our fair share in the Olympic Village and felt like a part of the group there,” Team USA’s Kevin Durant told USA Today. “We stay outside of it, but we get our time right before the opening ceremony”
Her selection of hoisting “Old Glory” made her the youngest and first tennis player to hold such duties for the USA.
While she was chosen by her teammates, “disappointed” US Track and Field legend Michael Johnson felt the honor should’ve gone elsewhere.
“I was hoping for a Simone Biles or an Olympic athlete from a traditional Olympic sport. I think they went for popularity,” Johnson said during his appearance on BBC’s Olympics coverage.
Biles was not in attendance at the opening ceremonies as her first event is scheduled for Sunday and the athletes were expected to be on their feet for nine hours.
The 2nd ranked player in the world makes her Olympic singles debut inside Court Philippe-Chatrier on Sunday when she faces Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic.
