British ice dancer answers the 2026 Olympics biggest bed question

The Milano Cortina Olympic Village appears to have brought some major upgrades.

Athletes arrived in Italy this week ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and British ice dancer Phebe Bekker wasted no time confirming that the infamous cardboard beds are a thing of the past.

“Heard it here first,” she said in a video posted to social media. “There are no cardboard beds — well, as far as I know.”

Ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, competitors arriving at their rooms were met with bed frames made of literal cardboard, a striking juxtaposition in the “Capital of Luxury.”

The furniture choice was initially introduced during the 2020 Games in Tokyo, said to help make the event more environmentally friendly. 

However, there were critics of the recyclable, twin-sized statement pieces, dubbed by some as “Anti-Sex” beds. The 2020 Games notably had an “intimacy ban” put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ban was lifted for 2024.

Making her Olympic debut in Milano Cortina alongside partner James Hernandez, the 20-year-old Bekker quickly put on her detective hat to “answer the question everybody’s asking.”

The British competitor filmed herself knocking on the sturdy frame before declaring, “We’re looking good.”

Bekker is a British Figure Skating Championships silver medalist who previously won gold multiple times in the event’s junior category.

She has made two World Championship appearances.

In 2022, she and Hernandez became the first British ice dancers to win a medal at the junior Grand Prix.