From cardboard to remote-controlled!
An Olympic athlete gave her followers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the sleeping arrangements for competitors at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, and it’s safe to say the beds have undergone a major upgrade.
The beds at the Tokyo Summer Games last year raised some eyebrows for their blocky, spartan-looking cardboard frames, which officials said were chosen because they were recyclable.
Summer Britcher, a luge athlete for Team USA, responded to a fan’s question about whether the beds at the Beijing Games are also made of cardboard.
“I am so excited you asked this question because I have something incredible to share,” Britcher said in a recent TikTok video. “Because not only do we not have cardboard beds here, but it’s as if the Beijing Organizing Committee said, ‘How can we just absolutely just one-up Tokyo?’ And this is what they went with.”
She revealed that her bed is remote-controlled, with one mysterious and luxurious-sounding setting called “Zero G.”
“I’m in Zero G mode now,” Britcher said, filming herself as she tried out her new mattress. “It’s phenomenal.”
A photo of a packing carton from the Olympic Village in December also appears to reveal how the mattress can be raised to support the torso or legs.
Britcher’s post about her state-of-the-art bed has racked up more than 50,000 likes on TikTok.
Her post also caught the attention of Ilona Maher, an American rugby player who competed in Tokyo last summer.
“Your … your bed has a whole remote to it? It has modes? How big is it? It looks pretty big,” Maher said in a funny response video on TikTok, pretending to be speaking through tears. “Our beds in Tokyo were, like, that big, and they were highly flammable and very solid. They were very solid beds. My back hurt like a week after I started laying on them. But have fun. That looks awesome. It looks so cool.”
Britcher, 27, has been sharing plenty of fun TikTok videos about life at the Olympic Village in the lead-up to the Winter Games.
In one recent clip, she joked about the “niche Olympian energy of wanting to take everything that’s not bolted down,” sharing a video of what looks like a fellow teammate stealing a plant from a hallway display.
“Don't worry I put the plant back,” Britcher wrote in the caption with an eye roll emoji.
She also took another opportunity to gush over her remote-controlled bed, writing in the comments, “People keep asking if I’m taking the bed, and guys if it would fit in my suitcase I would.”
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics run from Feb. 4 to Feb. 22, and the 2022 Winter Paralympics run from March 4 to March 13.
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