The Vancouver Organizing Committee has announced that Sleep Country Canada is supporting their athletes by providing some 5,800 twin beds and mattresses at the athlete’s village, in preparation for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The deal includes mattresses, box springs and frames, as well as transportation and installation in the two villages.Nejat Sarp, Vanoc’s vice-president of services and villages, said national Olympic committees impressed upon Vanoc the value of a good night’s rest for athletes and officials.

Of the top five concerns of athletes, a comfortable bed ranked highest, he said. So with that in mind, Sarp, a former executive who managed hotels for 15 years, went out and tested a number of mattress sets.

Ultimately Vanoc and Sleep Country settled on a mid-range mattress made by Serta that is, as Antonuk says, not too firm and not too soft.

“This is the Goldilocks trick, the soft spot that everybody kind of enjoys,” he said.

The mattresses will arrive in 40 trucks starting in November 2009.

Sarp said the contract calls for a standard one-metre-by-three-metre mattress set that will fit most athletes. However, he said the company will provide on a custom basis a number of longer twin sets for extra-tall athletes.

The mattress and bed sets won’t go to waste after the games though, since Sleep Country will be donating the bed foundations to poor families in the country.

Via Vancouver Sun