Behind Tilly Kearns’ Instagram tour of ‘Scrub Daddy’ beds in the Paris Olympic Village

Rock hard Olympic village beds that look like ‘scrub daddy’sponges have created a stir after Australian water polo player Tilly Kearns complained on social media.

Todd Balym

2 min read

July 24, 2024 - 2:01AM

News Sport Network

Olympics

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They’ve been described as “scrub daddy” beds with Australian Olympic athlete Tilly Kearns revealing she needed a massage after just one night sleeping on the cardboard single beds within the athletes’ village.

Kearns took to Instagram to reveal the mattress on the beds were reversible, a medium side and a firm side, with the inner padding looking more like a dish scrubber than a typical mattress.

“Already had a massage to undo the damage #olympics”, Kearns posted on Instagram.

Women’s rugby star Sharni Smale said athletes were not complaining about the facilities, and jokingly offered Kearns a massage to help ease her sore back while adding she’d used her bed as a “jumping castle”.

Aussie athlete Tilly Kearns has used Instagram to show just what's inside those Olympic beds. Picture: instagram

“I’m sleeping well. I’ve been in for 24 hours. I think that is just a bit of light hearted social media stuff as well getting in and around people talking about the beds,” Smale said.

“I haven’t needed a mattress topper so that is a positive.

“As I said I’m not going to struggle here with it. We are here to perform, we are here to be professionals and you just get dealt your cards.

Scrub Daddy, invented by Aaron Krause, who is also the company’s CEO, has been used to describe the beds in the Olympic Village. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian

“I am really comfortable in my bed. I can only speak for myself, I cannot speak for anyone else and I’m just really happy to be in the village.

“I will talk to Tilly, be like, ‘hey mate what’s going on here, I will give you a massage.’

“I think it’s just a bit of light-hearted social media stuff going around to try to get people engaged.

“You can see how good they are, you can jump on them and bounce around like jumping castles.”

Tilly Kearns is on the Australian water polo team.

Kookaburras veteran Aran Zalewski said the men’s hockey team would not allow the beds - however comfortable - to impact their performance mindset.

“You can subscribe to different narratives that you want and for us we will just be telling ourselves these beds are comfy whether they are comfy or not,” he said.

“We are saying we’ve had a good night’s sleep, we are ready to go and we’re feeling awesome.

“We will just put ourselves in a good frame of mind

“If we’re thinking about not breaking a record because of the bed we will be concerned. So we’re loving them.”