An Olympic swimmer has shocked online users are sharing that she was charged for a standard request with her food order.
The Italian town of Bisceglie is known for its stunning architecture, shining beaches and like much of the nation, its unreal food.
Let's be honest, if you're heading to Italy on holiday, one of the main plus points is the selection of pasta, pizza, and desserts on offer.
You can't go wrong, unless you're this competitive swimmer, that is.
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Elena Di Liddo represents Italy on the world stage, having competed at the 2020 summer Olympics, the World Aquatics Swimming Championships and the European Aquatics Championships among other competitions.
While in the quaint town of just 55,000 in the Puglia region on 10 August, the 31-year-old had some food at a city centre pizzeria, requesting the cherry tomatoes to be taken off her pizza.
It's a reasonable enough request as some people just don't fancy tomatoes, but when she got the bill, the athlete was in for a nasty surprise.
She was actually charged for removing the ingredient, noticing a €1.50 charge marked in Italian as 'no cherry tomatoes'.
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Writing on Instagram to her 33k+ followers, she said that the unforeseen charge was 'sad and at times shameful', even asking if it was legal to charge for something she hadn't eaten.
Di Liddo asked: "Sitting in a pizzeria in Bisceglie and paying EUR 1.50 for something I didn't even eat is truly sad. Bordering on the legal?"
Unbelievably, this isn't the first time that the swimmer had witnessed a charge for something out of the ordinary.
She noted that some bars in northern Italy would go as far as charging for some water with a coffee.
It's something that's unheard of for a lot of Brits, as even the fanciest establishments serve free tap water if you ask.
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The swimmer explained that she felt that she needed to share the incident to bring attention to an increasing trend in restaurant pricing.
She achieved her goal by the looks of things, with numerous social media users calling the worrying occurrence out.
Most users all agreed that more customers are being exploited nowadays, while some suggested that removing ingredients could take extra time for staff and affect preparation.
Di Liddo built her following up through the success of her swimming career, having won two medals at the 2013 Mediterranean Games, as well as several more at the 2017 Summer Universiade and two editions of the European Short Course Swimming Championships.
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While winning two bronze medals with the relay team at the Swimming European Championships Hungary in 2020 was a big achievement, Di Liddo also competed in the Tokyo Olympics a year later in the 100m butterfly.
Topics: Food And Drink, Money, Olympics, Social Media, Sport, Travel
Joshua Nair