Lolo Jones proves that Tyson Chandler is way, way too big for Olympic Village beds
You've surely already read that the beds at the temporary residences in the Olympic Village are just 68 inches long — just 5 feet, 8 inches, for the non-math majors among us (I used a calculator and everything). That's smaller than an American twin mattress and, as such, a pretty uncomfortable fit for the lion's share of Olympic athletes, including many of the larger men at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, which is why many of those larger competitors stay in hotels outside the village. But the readin' and 'rithmetic route doesn't quite do the disparity justice.
[ Related: Team USA basketball gets a Beatles-like welcome ]
American hurdler Lolo Jones was hanging out with some members of the U.S. men's national basketball team on Thursday, before the upcoming Opening Ceremony officially kicks matters off at the '12 Summer Games. The largest man on the team — starting center Tyson Chandler — momentarily took a load off and stretched out on one of those same Olympic Village beds. The image seemed so comical that Jones just felt she had to share it with the world, alongside the caption: "Ok, so run this by me again @tysonchandler, why wont the men's basketball team sleep in the olympic village?"
Chandler's listed at 7-foot-1, or 85 inches tall; if Team USA stayed in the village residences, a full 20 percent of his body would be hanging off the end of the bed. It'd probably be pretty tough to get a good night's sleep that way, let alone keep your legs rested and fresh enough to run big minutes as the U.S. roster's only legitimate center. Not even the extend-o-beds available in the village would add much comfort there.
The good news, as Y!'s Dan Wetzel noted in his column on Team USA's arrival in London, is that the team bunks outside the village "for security and comfort reasons," so Tyson and the rest of the tall team members won't have to worry about tight-squeeze sleeping arrangements. The bad news, though? We're unlikely to get any #GotEm shots of Chandler looking like a sleeping giant in a fairy tale, spilling out the bed on all sides, from his USA Basketball brethren. Oh, well. Maybe we'll get lucky.
Hat-tip to Business Insider.
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