“Kind of a ‘Squid Game’ Vibe”: We Spoke to Olympians About Life Inside the Beijing Bubble

In between hours of ice hockey practice and meals taken between plastic dividers, Samantha Kolowratová finds herself wandering the aisles of the sterile white athletes’ “mall.” 

Some hallways are lined with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, from where the glaring light of a KFC shines through. Still further there’s a salon where athletes can get free hairstyling, facials, and manicures. Here, the table dividers are gold-rimmed, and the white walls are painted with flourishes of gold and blue. A gift shop hosts shelves filled with souvenirs sitting under stark fluorescent lights.

Everything is within arm’s reach for the athletes, but it has to be. Kolowratová, a Czech ice hockey player, and some 2,900 athletes competing at the Beijing Olympics, set to begin on Friday evening, can’t leave their village. Should they try, they’d be stopped by security personnel standing guard at closed gates.