The Australian Olympic Committee has demanded Rio 2016 organisers enforce a strict ban on smoking in the athletes’ village after saying a fire in the basement of their building was probably caused by a cigarette tossed into rubbish.
Delegation head Kitty Chiller said it was also completely unacceptable that a previously tested fire alarm system had been switched off at the time without the Australians being informed.
The incident, which filled the stairwells with smoke on Friday evening, came after the Australians and several other teams had complained about unfinished and dirty rooms before moving in.
"The fire did seem to be accidental, probably a cigarette thrown into rubbish in the building," Chiller told a news conference on Saturday.
"We have asked Rio 2016 to enforce a very strict non-smoking policy. Every athletes' village in the Olympic Games should be non-smoking so we've asked for that to be enforced because at the moment it's not."
A spokesman for the local organisers confirmed that a discarded cigarette butt was suspected.
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