US sprinter Gabby Thomas said the Olympic mattresses and pillows were ‘brutal,’ and made it hard to recover from training

• Sprinter Gabby Thomas told Insider the pillows and mattresses at Olympic village were "brutal."
• The cardboard bed frames, however, got more attention during the games.
• Thomas said she used tools like ice baths and massages, which she usually avoids, for recovery.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Olympic athletes in Tokyo slept on bed frames made of cardboard, an attempt at sustainability – not anti-intimacy – that received plenty of jeering and meme-making on social media. "They're acting like the floor doesn't exist," one Twitter user wrote.

But USA Track and Field athlete and two-time medalist Gabby Thomas told Insider the cardboard wasn't a problem, but what sat atop it was.

"The mattresses were really, really hard, and so were the pillows. It was really brutal actually," the 24-year-old said through a partnership with "healthy soda" brand Olipop.

The mattresses were made of materials that could be recycled into plastic products, AP reported, and their firmness could be adjusted. However, Thomas didn't find any hacks to make them more comfortable.

Their stiffness made it difficult not just to get past jet lag but also to recover from training on what Thomas described as a particularly springy track.

"The track was so fast and bouncy that it was really hard for our bodies to turn around and recover from that," she said. "And so to have a bed that's so hard and uncomfortable to sleep on, it was actually really hard to get the recovery."

Thomas looked to other tools for recovery

Thomas tried to sleep as much as she could, eat well, and focus on remaining calm. On competition mornings, she meditated, visualized her race, and "loaded up on caffeine."

She also indulged in the techniques like ice baths and massages that she typically avoids. "Normally I stay away from ice baths and NormaTec boots just because I like to train my body to recover on its own and not be reliant on those tools," she said. "But the Olympics was the perfect time to allow my body to utilize them."

Thomas won a bronze medal in the 200-meter sprint and a silver in the 4x100-meter relay days later. At the Olympic trials earlier, her 200-meter time made her the 3rd-fastest woman in the event's history. Her goal had been to make the Olympic team.

Now, her shorter-term goals are to graduate with her master's in epidemiology and health care management from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022, and make - and win gold at - the World Championships. Then, she'll set higher goals for Paris 2024 because, she said, "I feel like a new athlete now."