The summer Olympics are back — and so are the Olympic Village athlete beds.
Last time around at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the athletes’ accommodations made headlines for their intriguing material: cardboard. Designed to be recycled into new products after the Games were finished, the beds did have to overcome allegations of being “anti-intimacy.”
Regardless of their purpose, the cardboard beds evidently proved a success, as they’re back and strong as ever this year.
Get a closer look at the Olympic Village beds with Tom Daley. : @tomdaley pic.twitter.com/mY9qJjdC6C
For Olympic surfers, however, things are a bit different. This Games’ edition of the event will be held in Tahiti — the farthest a medal competition has ever been held from a host city.
With the competitors over 9,000 miles away from Paris, a surfer-specific Olympic village was needed. The result? A floating village on board a cruise liner based out of the island.
The Olympic Village for surfing athletes is onboard the Aranui 5, A cruise-liner based in Tahiti #ParisOlympics (:TT/camilla_kemp) pic.twitter.com/KT3E3fsKsh
Each room includes a balcony with an ocean view. Notably, they do not also contain cardboard beds.