It takes 9 Olympians to break one of the Olympic Village's cardboard beds, viral TikTok shows

• An Israeli baseball player posted a video breaking one of the Olympic Village's cardboard beds.
• The TikTok video, posted by Ben Wanger, showed nine people jumping on the bed and breaking it.
• The cardboard beds have become a TikTok fixation, with athletes testing their strength.

Olympians have put the Olympic Village's famous cardboard beds through the wringer, and Team Israel's Ben Wanger appears to have taken it the furthest in a viral TikTok.

In a video posted on Monday, Wanger - and eight other men - tested the beds' true capacity, eventually breaking it by jumping on the mattress simultaneously.

The village's cardboard beds have been an object of cultural fascination at the Tokyo Games amid rumors that they were built to prevent Olympians from having sex with each other (thus preventing unnecessary close contact). The New York Times and other outlets have reported that the rumor was false, and Takashi Kitajima, the general manager of the Athletes Village, told the Associated Press in January 2020 that the beds can hold up to 440 pounds.

The beds, made by the Japanese company Airweave, are recyclable, and plans for them were put in place even before the games were called off in 2020 due to the pandemic.

"Been getting a lot of questions about the beds in the Olympic Village, so today we're gonna check and see how many Israelis it takes to break one of these cardboard beds," Wanger says at the beginning of the viral video, which has been viewed over 280,000 times since he posted it less than 24 hours ago.

At first, Wanger, a member of the Israeli Olympic baseball team who also plays for the American team the Lancaster Barnstormers, jumps on the bed alone. One by one, more Team Israel members join to jump with him. At nine, the bed finally gives in.

Other Olympians have also put the beds to the test. Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan tested the beds' strength to disprove the anti-sex rumor, and American rugby player Ilona Maher posted a video showing herself and her teammates testing the bed by performing CPR, doing yoga, and beating down on it.

Olympic bed content - and indeed, Olympians themselves - have become so pervasive on TikTok that the hashtag #cardboardbed has amassed over 5.3 million views, with plenty of videos showing athletes beating down on and showing off their sleeping space in the village.

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