Not all married couples get to live together in the Olympic village

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AP/Elaine Thompson

Married Olympic athletes Brianne Theisen-Eaton and Ashton Eaton embrace.

There's a handful of married couples competing in the Rio Games - but they probably won't be sharing a bed in the Olympic village. 

On Instagram, Canadian heptathlete Brianne Theisen-Eaton (who's married to American decathlete Ashton Eaton) revealed that the couple can't room together during the games.

"No married couple housing," she wrote in response to a commenter. "We each stay in our own building and sleep in our own twin bed." 

In 2012, an Olympic historian told the Wall Street Journal that married couples are sometimes allowed to room together - the decision is actually up to each country's Olympics committee.

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For example, during the London games four years ago, rifle shooters Katy and Matt Emmons (of Czechoslovakia and the US, respectively) were allowed to stay together in Czech dorms. But, during the same Olympics, Australian shooters Lauryn and Russell Mark were not. (The Marks went on to accuse officials of discrimination.)

For the Eatons, rooming together isn't an option since neither the US nor Canada appears to allow it. But they don't think of it as a bad thing. In fact, the separation helps them focus on the competition at hand. 

"For something as big as the Olympics, we prefer to have our own spaces and sleeping places since our schedules and competition days are different," Theisen-Eaton wrote on Instagram. 

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