At Olympic Village, athletes get cardboard beds, rationed eggs and a chance to compete

SAINT DENIS, France – When he checked into Olympic Village earlier this week, one of the first things South Africa badminton coach Dillan Schaap noticed was how quiet it got at night.

Streets that are bustling with world-class athletes during the days, trading pins and enjoying the village’s many amenities, get sleepy when the sun goes down.

“There’s so much discipline,” Schaap told USA TODAY as he sat in the village’s beauty and grooming salon waiting for one of his athletes and her friend during a village media tour Thursday. “You’re waking up early in the morning, there’s people running and exercising already. By the time you go to bed at like 10 o’clock there’s very few athletes walking around, they’re all doing their thing in their rooms and stuff.

“I think that’s the big takeaway is that you think that all the work gets done, you get to the Olympics and now you just compete, whereas it’s not like. We have our training sessions, we got to the arena but in between that we do sessions here when we need to. You do physical exercise here if you need to. These players are training throughout the Olympics as well. You don’t just stop training just to compete, which I think for me was a really cool aspect.”

A nursery for children and a multi-faith center

The village, built in a Paris suburb that formerly housed old industrial buildings, can accommodate more than 14,000 athletes, coaches and staff during the Olympic Games and another 8,000 athletes in next month’s Paralympics.

It has a two-story gym with an attached mental wellness center dimly lit and painted in calming purple hues, a nursery designed for young children where athletes can schedule playtime for their kids who stay elsewhere during the Games, a dining hall that’s open 24 hours and serves an estimated 40,000 meals a day, a post office, souvenir shop and multi-faith center, and housing developments for countries, many of which fly flags or other banners to signify their residence.

Team USA’s building includes a private gym, a lounge to watch Olympic events and a first-floor medical center that athletes, including track star Sha’Carri Richardson , visited Thursday for chiropractic and other preventative care.

“It’s really nice,” said Keturah Orji, a triple-jumper who is competing in her third Olympics. “I love it. I think this is the nicest one we’ve had so far based off of the memory I have, and yeah, to me I’m always impressed and excited about the village. It only happens once every four years, so it’s a great feel.”

Olympic Village cardboard beds and vast array of dining options

While Orji and her training partner, Jamaican triple jumper Jordan Scott, arrived at the village Thursday, some athletes who’ve been on campus longer have taken to social media to share mixed reviews on the village’s eco-friendly cardboard beds and the village’s dining options, including an apparent egg shortage according to the BBC.

The dining hall offers six restaurants that serve a variety of foods: Halal, Asian, French and two restaurants offering world fare.

And the beds are similar in construction to the ones introduced at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Each athlete is fitted for a mattress to go on the bed’s frame.

"The cardboard beds are a bit stiff, but it’s OK," three-time Team USA judo Olympian Angelica Delgado said Wednesday. "In judo ... we’re kind of accustomed to being uncomfortable and put in uncomfortable situations so I think we’re OK with that."

“I’ve slept well the last two nights, so I have no complaints,” seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky said Wednesday. “And I think having been to Olympics before, we kind of know what to expect with an Olympic Village. It’s always really exciting when you walk in for the first time and you see all the buildings and the different countries’ flags on the buildings. It’s really just a beautiful sight to walk in and to see that and to see, as I said, athletes from all different sports walking around and interacting with each other. It’s just really neat, so I’ve had a great experience in the village so far.”

Evan Olson, a rower for Team USA at his first Olympics, said the village, as busy as it is, is less overwhelming than he expected it to be.

He said the streets are “definitely a zoo” during the day, “but everyone here is here for the same reason, to win a gold medal,” and largely focused on that.

“I mean, the thing is, too, you just walk around everyone seems like they’re pretty normal, living their life,” he said. “They wear funny costumes, but what you don’t see is just like how normal it is for everyone to just grind. Everyone here, like every single person here is a grinder and they didn’t just grind for a year or two years, they grounded for like five, 10, 15 years and it’s just normal.

“It’s just like ingrained in people. And it’s super normal and yeah, it’s just kind of assumed that everyone worked really hard to get here. That’s just kind of the baseline.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: At Olympic Village, athletes get cardboard beds, rationed eggs and a chance to compete