Athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics are already providing some gold medal-worthy insight into Olympic Village.
Take, for example, Team USA rugby player Ilona Maher, who put the famous "anti-sex" cardboard beds to the test.
"Hey everyone we are back again in the Olympic Village testing out the cardboard beds," Ilona said in a TikTok July 23 alongside her fellow Olympians. "Am I afraid my bed is gonna break? Yes. But I'm gonna do it anyway. Let's go!"
And go the athletes did, trying out everything you can think of to see what might actually break the bed—including fake childbirth (with three people on the bed), gymnastics routines, an intense wrestling session that they had to break apart, breakdancing, the 2013 Vine dance "Grind on Me" and, of course, a TikTok dance thrown in for good measure. They even attempted an Irish jig, jokingly quipping, "We do not mean to offend any Irish people."
Amazingly, throughout all of the increasingly hilarious tests, the cardboard bed remained intact.
The Team USA rugby players aren't the first to give a peek at the beds British diver Tom Daley recently shared his own video showing off the living quarters.
"This is cardboard," Tom explained in a July 22 TikTok. "Then you've got the mattress and then this cardboard with the mattress on top with a mattress topper. And then, we get our own Paris '24 [comforter]."
And of course, the 30-year-old, who is marking his fifth Olympics at the 2024 Paris Games, made sure to test the bed with some serious jumping, adding, "As you can see, they're pretty sturdy!"
The beds themselves first went viral during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics for their fragile appearance and the idea that they were supposed to promote an "anti-sex" stance in the Olympics Village, which is known for some rather wild antics.
But according to the company behind the bed, that is a complete misnomer.
"The funny part is, there was no truth to that," Airweave COO Brett Thornton recently told E! News. As he explained, the rumors started because of the COVID-19 protocols at the time, which discouraged athletes from mingling in the Olympic Village. "The rumor was that the Olympic teams didn't want athletes sleeping together, so they designed this flimsy cardboard bed so people wouldn't do that."
And while he did admit the beds may look flimsy, the beds and the mattresses themselves were designed to be firm enough to align athletes' spines and help provide longer, deep sleep.
"When you're sleeping at night and you're in memory foam and it's time to turn," he emphasized, "you actually have to put so much effort to turn that you wake up from a deep sleep. You come out of deep REM and then it takes you another five minutes to get back in."
Moreover, the beds provide another important perk: sustainability. When it's time to pack up the Olympic Village, the beds and mattress can be recycled.
Curious about other interesting rules the Olympians have to follow at the 2024 Olympics? Keep reading.