Because the beds of athletes in the Olympics are made of cardboard

It is not true that the beds of the athletes participating in Tokyo 2020 are made of cardboard to prevent sex. The pre-pandemic choice is a question of sustainability

The cardboard beds at the Tokyo Olympic Village (photo: u Xiaoyi / Xinhua via ZUMA Wire / Ipa) No, the beds on which athletes engaged in the Olympics sleep of Tokyo are not made of cardboard to prevent sportsmen from having sex and keep the distance. They are built with this seemingly unusual material in order to be more sustainable and fully recyclable. The choice was made by the committee that organizes Tokyo 2020 well before the outbreak of the pandemic: it was announced in autumn 2019 and the first images, which also showed Wired, date back to January 2020 (remember, the pre-Covid times ?).

The athletes' cots have come under the spotlight these days, when sportsmen have begun to settle in the Olympic village in view of the start of the races, on July 24th (on July 23 there is the ceremony of opening). The attention was sparked by the American cross-country runner Paul Chelimo, who posted photos of the beds on Twitter wondering if the choice of those apparently fragile beds did not have the purpose of limiting the intimacy between athletes. The doubt insinuated by Chelimo: can the beds hold the weight of a single person? For the record: they resist up to 200 kilos and it is really difficult for a single athlete to have this size.

Beds to be installed in Tokyo Olympic Village will be made of cardboard, this is aimed at avoiding intimacy among athletes

Beds will be able to withstand the weight of a single person to avoid situations beyond sports.

I see no problem for distance runners, even 4 of us can do😂 pic.twitter.com / J45wlxgtSo

- Paul Chelimo🇺🇸🥈🥉 (@Paulchelimo) July 17, 2021



Chelimo's tweet went viral, spreading the idea of ​​anti-sex beds. Of course, it is true that the organizers of the Games keep repeating that unnecessary contacts must be avoided. But no one thought of forbidding any moments of intimacy. For this reason, as usual, 160 thousand condoms will be distributed to the participants. Nothing compared to those of Rio 2016: 450 thousand in total, 42 each for each athlete.

Sex aside, the cardboard beds (also shown by the swimming champion Federica Pellegrini in her stories on Instagram dedicated to arrival in Tokyo) are resistant: the organizers of the Games, the first postponed in the history of the Olympics, and Airweave, the Japanese company that supplied the 18 thousand cardboard beds, also confirmed this. The ultimate proof comes from another athlete, Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan, who posted a video on Twitter where he jumps on a bed showing it won't break and branding the whole thing as fake news.

“Anti-sex” beds at the Olympics pic.twitter.com/2jnFm6mKcB

- Rhys Mcclenaghan (@McClenaghanRhys) July 18, 2021



It's not fake news the reason why these particular beds were adopted: sustainability. The cardboard with which the beds are built is in fact light to transport (limiting the emissions related to this phase) and is totally recyclable. Even the mattresses are eco-friendly: they are in fact made with polyethylene fibers, which, according to Airweave, can be reused an infinite number of times.


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Topics

Environment Japan Tokyo Olympics Sport globalData.fldTopic = "Environment, Japan, Tokyo Olympics, Sport "

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