Some Daily Post readers may be following the Paris Olympic Games for its elegant athletic achievements.
I’m more interested in the less-elegant cardboard beds.
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the athletes’ accommodations made headlines, because the beds in the Olympic Village were made of cardboard… designed to be recycled into new products after the Games were finished.
The beds had to overcome allegations of being “anti-intimacy.”
Apparently, Olympic athletes tend to engage in sex in their off hours. You might think this would be especially common in a romantic city like Paris. So when the athletes arrived in Paris this year and discovered their beds were once again made of cardboard — and when, soon thereafter, journalists covering the Games got wind of it — we were led to wonder if the beds were intentionally designed to discourage intimacy.
I can say, from personal experience, that a bed, per se, is not absolutely necessary if you seriously feel the need to get intimate. I assume a cardboard bed would be just as suitable as, say, the back seat of a Ford Fiesta, when sufficient desire is present.
And we are talking here about Olympic athletes. Some of the strongest, most flexible and tenacious people on the planet.
Of course, I’m not making the argument that I, myself, would enjoy sleeping on a cardboard bed. But then, I’m not an Olympic athlete. (Note that I’m only talking about sleeping, not anything else.)
My cat, Roscoe, can sleep almost anywhere. He could easily fall asleep on a cardboard bed, even without a mattress.
I would need a mattress. And from what I can tell, the Paris beds do, in fact, include mattresses. And pillows. The kind that can be recycled. We’re concerned here about sustainability, not indulgence.
The Paris Olympic Village is reportedly accommodating more than 14,000 athletes and officials, and is the size of 70 soccer fields. It includes a sprawling food court with various cuisines, an expansive gym, and a medical center, The Associated Press reported.
It’s even home to an authentic French bakery that’s providing baking classes to Olympians looking for a way to relax. If they haven’t found other ways to relax.
Oddly enough, when I went searching for a public domain photo of “Olympics cardboard beds” to illustrate this story, my browser did not show me any of the Paris beds, but instead offered me a bunch of pictures of Iranian kick-boxers. The things I didn’t know about Iran!
At any rate, the photo of cardboard beds shown above is actually from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. But they look similar to the Paris beds, except that the French organizers printed a ‘good night’ message on the headboards… the French phrase Rêvez vos exploits de demain.
If my high school French serves me, this means, roughly, “Dream about your achievements of tomorrow.”
Nothing about “your conquests of tonight.”
That surprises me.
According to journalist Megan Loe, writing for ABC News:
The Olympic Village has a longstanding reputation for being an intimate place for athletes. To encourage safe sex, organizers typically make condoms available to athletes.
At the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympics, a reported 450,000 condoms were available to athletes. For the Tokyo Games, that number was much lower, as the COVID-19 pandemic loomed over the event. Still, a reported 150,000 condoms were given to the more than 11,000 Olympic athletes.
COVID is pretty much over, and there’s 70 soccer fields of cardboard beds in the Olympic Village. And we’re in Paris.
‘Nuff said.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.