Brits sympathise with Australian plight

The Poms are sympathetic to Australia's plight.

They've offered help. And brought their own plumber.

But Australia's troubles settling in to the Olympic village haven't prompted Team Great Britain to recast their own protocols.

"Not at all," Team GB chef de mission Mark England told reporters on Monday.

"There was a number of NOCs (National Olympic Committees) we have worked quite closely with ... to ensure that the state of readiness was appropriate for athletes to come into the village.

"Ourselves and the Australians worked pretty closely on that."

Australian chef de mission Kitty Chiller initially refused to let her team take residence in the village due to widespread safety concerns - they moved in three days late, after urgent repairs.

Then, last Friday, there was a fire in the basement of the Australian building which forced an evacuation.

The fire alarms had been deactivated at the time. And during the evacuation, a cycling official had a laptop stolen and some Australian team shirts were pinched.

England said he had given as much help as possible to help the Australians.

"When you get in the thick of it prior to competition, everybody is very supportive," he said.

"And we're happy to support any other National Olympic Committee, for sure, and we gave Kitty a lot of support in terms of some of the challenges she was going through."

England said Team GB's building was some distance from the Australian residence.

"It's quite a long way away ... all we heard was they did have some challenges there, but it has been pretty consistent across the village," he said.

"We have just cracked on and got it done."

That included employing their own plumber amid numerous reports of blocked drains and toilets in the athletes' village.