NBA stars ditch Olympic Village for luxury cruise ship behind bulletproof fence

Rio de Janeiro has been sprinting to finish Olympic facilities before the summer games kick off this Friday, but athletes who have already arrived in Brazil found leaky pipes, blocked toilets and exposed wiring in the Olympic Village.

American basketball stars don’t want to chance staying in the incomplete lodgings, instead opting to stay in a luxury cruise ship off the coast of the city. According to EFE, the Silver Cloud can house 400 people in 196 cabins. Members of both men’s and women’s teams are reported to be staying aboard the ship.

Other U.S. athletes as well as competitors from around the world will be stuck in the Olympic Village, where the Australian basketball team has been forced to put together its own shower curtains, and was robbed during a fire evacuation. Fire alarms did not sound when a blaze in the building’s underground parking lot began.

The ship will be surrounded by a bulletproof fence and police will patrol the area. Another ocean liner is reserved for International Olympic Committee members and others, according to Brazilian website UOL.

This isn’t the first year NBA stars have opted for their own lodgings: The 1992 American basketball team stayed in luxury hotels, and the 2004 team stayed on a ship outside Athens.

This story was originally published August 3, 2016 at 6:51 PM with the headline "NBA stars ditch Olympic Village for luxury cruise ship behind bulletproof fence."