The Olympics is back as Paris gears up to host the 2024 Games. And alongside the thousands of athletes competing against each other for a place in history is a behind-the-scenes culture of competitors getting up, close, and very personal.
Since the 1980s, organisers of the Olympics and Paralympics have handed out condoms to athletes upon their arrival in the Olympic Village.
Even in the 2020 Tokyo Games, which was communicated to athletes as a 'no sex' event due to Covid, a staggering 160,000 condoms were handed out to competitors as a 'souvenir' to take home with them.
For the 2024 Paris Olympics, even more will be handed out to athletes. We're talking 200,000 male condoms, 20,000 female, and 10,000 dental dams.
The Olympics 'anti-sex' beds have also made a return for 2024 after first being introduced in Tokyo, with athletes taking to TikTok to test them out in very PG-friendly ways.
Advert
One Team GB athlete, who has since retired, opened up on what actually goes on with athletes when it comes to all things sex.
Matthew Syed represented Great Britain in table tennis at the 1992 Barcelona Games, followed by Sydney in 2000.
"Barcelona was, for many of us Olympic virgins, as much about sex as it was about sport," he said back in 2008 during the Beijing Games.
Writing in The Times, Syed said he 'spent so much time in a state of lust that he could have passed out', with men and women equally engaged in the sexual tensions brewing behind the scenes and away from the cameras.
Advert
He said: "I am often asked if the Olympic Village - the vast restaurant and housing conglomeration that hosts the world’s top athletes for the duration of the Games - is the sex-fest it is cracked up to be.
"My answer is always the same: too right it is.
"I played my first Games in Barcelona in 1992 and got laid more often in those two and a half weeks than in the rest of my life up to that point."
And why does it seem to go wild with athletes during the Games?
Advert
Well, Syed reckons it's due to the self-discipline they impose upon themselves during preparation for competition.
"It is a common sight to see recently knocked-out athletes gorging on Magnums and McDonald’s, swilling alcohol and, of course, sh*gging like crazy," he bluntly wrote.
"Sometimes all three at the same time."
Another Team GB member spoke to the Daily Mail about his experiences in the Olympic Village, saying: "You could have slept with a different woman every other night of the Games if you wanted to. More if you had your own room, like some of the athletes did.
"Team USA was in general the flirtiest and most up for it. Then the eastern Europeans - they're so laidback."
Advert
The cardboard beds being used in the 2024 Olympics are for environmental reasons, despite them being labelled as 'anti-sex', with online suggestions that they could give way under the weight of a few people.
A spokesperson for Airweave, which makes the beds, said: "We've conducted experiments, like dropping weights on top of the beds.
"As long as they stick to just two people in the bed, they should be strong enough to support the load."
Topics: Olympics, UK News, World News, Viral, Sport, Sex Education, Sex and Relationships
Tom Earnshaw