Daily tests, cardboard beds, 48K meals: 24 hours at Tokyo's Olympic Village

The village is built to sleep up to 18,000 Olympians, coaches and officials. They should wake up refreshed, despite Tokyo's 4:40am sunrise, thanks to thick black-out curtains. The beds and partition walls are made from sturdy recyclable cardboard, to be cleared away after the Games when the 21 towers are turned into luxury homes. Perhaps not so good if your neighbour snores!

Time for a daily coronavirus test -- a requirement for everyone staying in the village. They will administer the saliva antigen tests themselves and then submit them for processing. A positive result and a second positive on a more accurate PCR test means a trip to the fever clinic, a small prefab building in the centre of the village. At the clinic, a third test determines if you are out of the Games and need to isolate or go to hospital.

On the way to get breakfast, athletes can check an app that shows how crowded communal areas are, including the two floors of the vast 3,000-seat canteen. Village residents are asked to eat alone to avoid spreading potentially contagious droplets. Each seat is screened off with plexiglass.

Even under ordinary circumstances, feeding an Olympic Village is a mammoth task, with chefs preparing tens of thousands of meals a day for elite athletes from around the world. But at Tokyo 2020, there's an added pressure: strict coronavirus rules forbid athletes from eating at local restaurants, so it's their only chance to sample Japan's famous cuisine.

The world's top sportsmen and women can train at a huge gym with 600 cardio and weight-training machines. Masks are mandatory even when getting sweaty, and even though the gym machines are cleaned frequently, users are recommended to disinfect them before they start.

Public transport and walks outside the village are forbidden, so athletes must take dedicated buses from the site -- built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay -- to competition venues or training centres. On their return to the village, Olympic teams can stop off at the "Village Plaza", a wooden annex incorporating traditional Japanese construction techniques.

After dinner, athletes aren't obliged to stay cooped up in their rooms. The Village recreation centre beckons, with Nintendo consoles and spaces to relax, or they can wander around the waterside park. Violations of any rules will be punished, organisers have said -- with disqualification from the Games a possibility.