Chad le Clos should have been cleaning up at Olympic trials this week but instead he's been consigned to washing the dishes after being schooled by his dad at poker.
Le Clos had been expecting a double celebration this weekend after competing in the South African National Swimming Championships in Durban.
South Africa's most decorated Olympian turns 28 on Sunday and will still celebrate with the family, but the usual post-Olympics party will have to wait until next year after the Tokyo Games were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Le Clos has been in lockdown for a fortnight following a sharp exit from his Turkish training base, where he had relocated after being forced to leave a camp in Italy amid the COVID-19 crisis.
The Durban native is optimistic he can strike gold in Japan if he plays his cards right, but revealed it is his charismatic father Bert - who became a poolside star at London 2012 after his son was crowned 200-metre butterfly champion - who has been holding all the aces during isolation.
Asked how he has been spending his time in quarantine, Le Clos told Stats Perform: "Me and my dad made a nice cooking video, and I've been hanging outdoors quite a lot.
"We are playing a lot of poker, a crazy amount of poker. My dad is a really good player, me and my brother have been playing about five or six years. We've been playing every night to pass the time.
"We are playing for things like doing the dishes, breakfast in the morning, pancakes. I've been doing all the dishes, I've been so bad!"
Missing the pool, today would have been my 200 fly final at Olympic trials, shout out to all swimmers stay positive, we will be back soon @ArenaPeople pic.twitter.com/7YFVXAJuX5
— Chad Le Clos (@chadleclos) April 6, 2020
Le Clos is philosophical about the Olympics being put back 12 months as he deals with the hand he has been given and revealed it is not only his schedule that will need to be altered as he sets his sights on being the ace in the pack in Tokyo.
He added: "It's crazy to think how things have changed, I should have been competing and I'm in lockdown.
"It's my birthday this weekend, so there would have been an extra celebration but it's all good.
"My family had all these Tokyo 2020 Le Clos supporter t-shirts made that they were going to come round to the party in, so we have to change that to 2021!"
