Sustainable Sleeping Quarters

Organizers for the '20 Tokyo Games will "provide beds made out of cardboard for athletes to sleep in next summer." Japanese bedding company Airweave is providing Olympic athletes with 18,000 "high resistance lightweight cardboard" beds with polyethylene mattresses. The designs for the Olympians and additional 8,000 beds for the Paralympians slightly differ. Tokyo 2020 organizer Takashi Kitajima said that the aim of the cardboard beds was to "provide comfort for the athletes while simultaneously securing sustainability." The cardboard bed frames can support up to 441 pounds (USA TODAY, 9/24). The three-part polyethylene mattresses can be mixed and matched to suit each athlete's preferred firmness for the upper, middle and lower body (KYODO, 9/25).

Meanwhile, plans by the IOC to introduce "stricter guidelines" for transgender athletes before the Games have "run into the sand" because the organization's panel of scientists is "struggling to reach agreement" (London GUARDIAN, 9/24).