Foosball Tables & Aggressive Speed Walkers: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About the Olympic Village

• From: Gabby Douglas
• For: CNN

Editor’s note: Gabby Douglas is a US Women's Artistic gymnast who won gold medals in both the team and individual all-around competitions at the 2012 London Summer Olympics. With athletes headed to Sochi, Russia for the Winter Olympic Games scheduled to begin on Feb. 7, Douglas shared these insights about life in the Olympic Village in an interview with CNN’s Melissa Kondak, who summarizes Douglas’ points here:

1.       The cafeteria was huge. It was at least 3 football fields long and it had all the nationalities of food you can imagine, including my favorite kind of food, Chinese. There were also different stands that sold stuff like bread and hot chocolate.

2.       There was a strict curfew, especially for the gymnasts. I was a minor—I was 16—so there was a curfew for me that was either 10 or 11 o’clock. When I went to bed, I did hear loud music sometimes.

3.       Security guards were everywhere and they were so strict. Even when we went back and forth to practice, they went on the bus with us and checked our credentials. They were like the military. It was tight. Security was on.

4.       There was a really big game room filled with foosball tables, air hockey, wii and xbox games. There was even a recording studio where you could make your own music and sing. McKayla, Kyla, Aly and Jordyn, we all said we should totally make our own song.

5.       This won’t apply to the Sochi Olympic Village, but every time we walked out of our rooms, we had to look out for bikers training for the triathlon, or speed walkers. They would go really fast and we’d try to not get run over.