Olympic star claims cardboard beds aim to stop athletes romping as ex-medalist and Playboy model claims sex is ‘always a problem’

An Olympics star has claimed that cardboard beds only capable of holding one person will be installed in the Olympic Village at Tokyo 2020 as a means of discouraging athletes from taking part in sexual activities at the Games.

American track and field contender Paul Chelimo, who won a 5,000m silver in Rio five years ago, uploaded a photo of a pair of beds which appeared to have just been built, ready for use with a Tokyo 2020 duvet on top.

Issues around athlete isolation have been high on the agenda ahead of the start of the Olympics, with bosses anxious to avoid any further Covid-19 infections by keeping contact to a minimum at a showpiece where there will be no spectators.

"[The] beds to be installed in the Tokyo Olympic Village will be made of cardboard," wrote Chelimo. "This is aimed at avoiding intimacy among athletes."

"[The] beds will be able to withstand the weight of a single person to avoid situations beyond sports. I see no problem for distance runners – even four of us can do.

"Those who pee on the bed are at risk here. Once the carton box is wet the bed falls over. It will [especially] suck if it's a night before finals.

"At this point, I will have to start practicing how to sleep on the floor; because if my bed collapses and I have no training on sleeping on the floor I’m done. More added stress heading into Tokyo."

Fans seemed baffled by the bizarre stream of tweets. "I’m still stuck on the fact that it just now hit me that Olympic athletes were very much having sex during the Olympics," said one, adding a flushed face emoji.

"I get it," said another. "Some Japanese engineers were given a problem chain: bed, intimacy, Covid.

"So using their analytical skills, they thought if they eliminate 'bed, they could stop the chain before it got to Covid. Unfortunately, they didn't do QA testing."

In a somewhat mystifying joke, Chileno suggested that a move was being made from "breaking bad to breaking bed."

"I’m pretty sure I will be sleeping on the floor. I will sell my bed to [NBA star Kevin Durant] or one of the basketball players in case theirs collapses. Anyway, sleeping on the floor is not new to me.

"I can’t imagine getting boxed in at the 5k finals and also getting boxed at the Village. Double trouble."

Meanwhile, Susen Tiedtke, who represented Germany at the 1992 and 2000 Olympics and won silver and bronze medals at the World Athletics Indoor Championships before appearing in a Playboy issue of 'Women of the Olympics' in 2004, said that officials will be "powerless" to stop bed antics among athletes.

Describing them as "an integral part of every Games", she told Bild: "Any prohibitions are a big laughing stock for me. They do not work at all."

"Sex is always a problem in the Olympic village. At the Olympics, athletes are at their peak of physical fitness. When the competition is over, they want to throw out their energy. There is one party after another – alcohol often comes into play," she explained.

"You always heard others 'having fun', and sometimes you could hardly fall asleep.

"My father was my coach and he was very strict. If someone wanted to go on a date with me, they had to do 100 push-ups first. I had to meet [them] in secret, otherwise the whole village would have known this story."