TOKYO -- It would be off-brand for Motokuni Takaoka to say he loses sleep over anything. His company, after all, sells mattresses and bedding, and has supplied Olympic teams from Japan, the U.S., France, Germany, China and Australia since 2012. With the games scheduled to come to Tokyo in 2020, the company signed on as a sponsor.
For the Olympic Village, the 13-year-old company created a three-section, two-sided mattress that can be flipped and rearranged according to individual athletes' needs. The mattresses, repurposed from fishing line material, are lightweight, recyclable, and -- most important for the first Olympics to be postponed due to a pandemic -- easily washable. "Good for corona," Takaoka said, referring to the novel coronavirus.
