If you build it, they will come — but they might not stay.
The cramped bedroom quarters inside the Olympic Village at the Paris Games have apparently raised eyebrows among some athletes, including a few who chose to ditch their new digs for hotel rooms.
In a video on TikTok, Team USA tennis star Coco Gauff gave her followers a seven-second tour of the tight spaces where women were trying to do their hair and makeup. “10 girls, two bathrooms,” Gauff wrote in a text overlay. (The video was accompanied by screaming sound effects drawn from the horror movies “Pearl” and “Hereditary.”)
“I would go to a hotel,” a TikTok user commented. Gauff’s reply: “all the tennis girls moved to a hotel except me. so now just 5 girls two bathrooms.” She elaborated in another reply: “well it’s only 5 girls now so I have the room alone. roommates are very chill.”
It was not clear exactly why the tennis players left the village.
The minimalist sleeping areas are a time-honored Olympic Village tradition. In recent interviews with NBC News, Olympians from years past said rooms tend to be small, defined in part by what gold medalist swimmer Mark Spitz characterized as a “low-cost IKEA look.”
This year, the bare-bones bedrooms were designed with an eye on climate consciousness and a relatively light carbon footprint. The athletes staying inside the village are dozing off on cardboard beds. No air conditioning systems were installed, though some athletes brought their own mobile AC units.
In a reply to Gauff’s video, one TikTok user wanted to know how the 20-year-old tennis phenomenon was coping with all the cardboard. Gauff explained that she had it covered: “archery team lended me a mattress topper.”
In a comment on another TikTok user’s post, Team USA women’s gymnastics icon Simone Biles described the sleeping situation in blunt terms: “the bed sucks…… BUT we are getting mattress toppers so hopefully it’ll get better.” Biles’ reply was followed by the “fingers crossed” emoji.
In many cases, Olympic competitors enjoy all that life inside the village entails, from the 24/7 food service to the impromptu hangout sessions. “I chose to stay in [the] village for the experience,” Gauff explained in a reply on TikTok.
Brian Boitano — the gold medalist figure skater who competed at the 1984, 1988 and 1994 Games — recently told NBC News that the close quarters fostered immediate social bonds. “In Calgary, sharing that tiny apartment with seven guys — we were such a tight unit, he said, “and there was so much camaraderie.”
Team USA, a spokesperson for the American tennis team, and the Paris 2024 organizing committee did not immediately reply to requests for comment Monday. In a video posted on YouTube two weeks ago, the Olympics said the “sustainable beds are 100% made in France and will be fully recycled in France after the Games.”
Gauff’s tennis teammates were apparently not the only Paris competitors who left the official residential complex.
Six members of South Korea’s swimming squad departed and checked into a nearby hotel because they were concerned about delays on the buses that transport athletes from the village to their arenas, according to the Korea Times, an English-language newspaper.
“It usually takes about 40 to 45 minutes from the village to the arena, but it took us more than an hour and a half [on Thursday],” South Korean swimmer Hwang Sun-woo told the newspaper. “Windows were taped probably because they are worried about terrorist attacks. But something has to be done.”
Hwang was quoted comparing the bus to a “sauna” because of the lack of air conditioning.
The South Korean national Olympic committee did not respond to a request for comment on the Korea Times article.
Olympic competitors are not required to stay in the village. Michael Jordan and other members of the 1992 Dream Team — the first U.S. Olympic basketball squad featuring professional players — set up shop at the Ambassador Hotel during the 1992 Barcelona Games, for example.
It’s a tradition subsequent men’s basketball squads have followed.
“The last few times I’ve done the Olympics, we’ve spent our fair share in the Olympic Village and felt like a part of the group there,” Kevin Durant, the Phoenix Suns player and a member of the U.S. men’s national team, told USA Today. “We stay outside of it, but we get our time right before the opening ceremony.”
