The world’s second-tallest man is sleeping on the floor in the athletes’ village at the Paralympics in Paris, it has been revealed.
Iran’s Morteza Mehrzad, 36, was born with a rare medical condition called acromegaly, which causes excess growth and stands at 8ft 1in, just below Turkey’s Sultan Kosen who is 8ft 3in tall.
Mehrzad is a two-time Paralympic champion in sitting volleyball and is aiming to secure a hat-trick of gold medals in the French capital.
But his task has not helped by his sleeping arrangements in the athletes’ village.
Iran’s head coach Hadi Rezaei told Olympics.com: ‘In Tokyo, yes, they have made a special bed, but unfortunately not here.
The world’s second-tallest man, Morteza Merhzad (centre) is being forced to sleep on the floor in the athletes’ village at the Paralympics
Merhzad is a two-time Paralympic champion in sitting volleyball and is going for gold again
Sultan Kosen (right) is the only man in the world taller than Merhzad, and posed for a picture with the world’s smallest man, Nepal’s Chandra Bahadur Dangi (left) back in 2014
‘He’s going to lie on the floor.’
Despite Merhzad’s far from ideal preparations, Rezaei insists his fellow Iranian remains focused on emerging victorious from the Games.
‘He has got the most important aim in his mind,’ Rezaei continued.
‘It doesn’t matter for him whether he will lay on the floor or he’s not going to have enough to eat.
‘In any way, he has the mind to become a champion. Morteza can be considered the best player on our team.
‘As a matter of fact, if you go back to Morteza when he was 12-years-old, no one had any consideration for him, but when he became a sitting volleyball player, everyone, all around the world know him and respect him.
‘I would like to give you one sentence – I believe that each person has got potential in the world and we have to discover it.’
Olympic athletes were given cardboard beds (pictured) for the Paris Games
Australian swimming champion Ariarne Titmus (pictured) was not happy with the conditions in the athletes’ village, claiming ‘we were living in filth’
Athletes at last month’s Olympics also complained about the bedding situation in Paris after being made to sleep on single beds made from cardboard.
Australian swimming champion Ariarne Titmus was also far from impressed with the village conditions, claiming ‘we were living in filth’.
During a guest appearance on Australian TV show The Project, Titmus explained: ‘The village isn’t as glamorous as people think. My bathroom in my apartment was bigger than the living room for the four of us.
‘Our bedsheets got changed after the first night we were there and then they didn’t get changed for the rest of the time we were there so we were living in filth.
‘We had to lie about being roommates so we could get toilet rolls. You’d run out of toilet paper and they’d give you one [roll] for four days for the entire apartment.’
