For most people, the 2026 Winter Olympics is all about competition and sports. But TBH, for me, I’m just excited for the TEA. Because in case you weren’t aware, the athletes are more entertaining off-screen than on — and to prove it, here are some verrrrry NSFW hookup stories and facts from past Olympics that you definitely didn’t know about:
1.
Starting at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, athletes had to sleep on cardboard beds. As an absolute snob about beds and where I sleep, this is pretty preposterous to me, let alone if I were an Olympic athlete — so the question is, why the heck would they build it out of such a flimsy material? Well, they were allegedly designed on purpose to be “anti-sex.”
And guess what? The cardboard beds came back for the 2024 Olympics. But the question as to whether they were purposefully built for anti-sex purposes lingered — some athletes like Tom Daley debunked just how flimsy they were by jumping on it. This evolved into a debate, with other people pointing out that one person jumping on a bed is a whole lot different than two people having sex. Anyway, we don’t have to worry about it anymore, because the beds at the 2026 Winter Olympics are made out of wood. Phew.
2.
Because of the long history of athletes getting down and dirty in the Olympic Village, the organizers of the Games have learned to come prepared. At the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, they prepared 300,000 condoms, anticipating that they’d blow through them all pretty quickly (no pun intended).
For some necessary context on just how wild that number is — there are just above 10,000 athletes, so that means they’re expecting each person to have sex approximately 30 times in around two weeks. When discussing the absurd number of condoms, the director of the Olympic Village said, “We wanted to create some places where the athletes would feel very enthusiastic and comfortable.” And bonus fact: they ran out of condoms this year, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, but they reportedly started off with far fewer.
3.
Ready for an absolutely wild story? At the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, a group of Olympians from around the world were feeling especially friendly. They went to someone’s home outside the Olympic Village in Whistler — one thing led to another, and they allegedly ended up having an orgy in the hot tub. Yes, an ORGY.
If you’re wondering whether or not your country was involved, lucky for you, I’ve got a list: there were Canadians, Germans, and Austrian athletes. (I know, wouldn’t expect that of us innocent Canadians, eh?) A skier gave ESPN the deets: “It was a late-night whirlpool party. It turned into a whirlpool orgy.” Whew.
4.
And of course, once the mid-2010s rolled around and dating apps became widespread, it became much easier to hook up with fellow Olympians. The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia was one of the first major examples of this. They saw a massive rise in Tinder usage in the Olympic Village. Athletes were pretty much running the app — usage spiked by 400% day-over-day. And this wasn’t even in Tinder’s heyday yet!
Reflecting on the wild experience of being on Tinder in the Olympic Village, American snowboarder Jamie Anderson said, “Tinder in the Olympic Village is next level. It’s all athletes! In the mountain village it’s all athletes. It’s hilarious. There are some cuties on there.” But I gotta tip my hat to her, because she had enough self-control to realize when it got too far. “There was a point where I had to be like OK, this is way too distracting,” she admitted, stating that she ended up deleting her account.
5.
At the London 2012 Olympics, Grindr literally CRASHED once athletes started to arrive. Tech experts said it was because of the unprecedented demand, and the app simply couldn’t handle it. “It happened almost as soon as the teams got here. Either loads of athletes were logging on to meet fellow Olympians or were looking to bag a local,” A Londoner said at the time. “It took 24 hours for the app to get back up and running, much to the relief of all concerned.”
Clearly, not being able to use Grindr turned out to be a major source of stress for the Olympians. It was such a massive outrage that the founder of Grindr had to apologize. “I want to personally apologize to users,” he said, admitting that he understood it was a “frustrating” issue, and the Grindr employees worked “around the clock” to fix it. “I also rely on Grindr in my day-to-day personal life. It made me feel disconnected,” he said.
6.
Thankfully, Grindr has learned its lesson from that 2012 fiasco. They’ve since doubled down to ensure athletes can use the app safely (and we’re cheering for that!). For the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics, the company has announced brand-new, specific features in the app to help LGBTQ+ Olympians hook up (optimizing their experience, if you will).
And honestly, some of these new features seem pretty awesome. First, they tackled “serious safety and privacy concerns” that might’ve caused worries, especially for athletes coming from countries with discriminatory laws against gay people. They also enabled unlimited access to the disappearing message function, and planned to send Olympian users weekly updates reminding them about privacy, safety, and “risks specific to the Olympic environment.”
7.
American soccer player and two-time gold medalist Hope Solo competed in three Olympic Games from 1996 to 2004. And she had a lot to say about the scandalous side of the Olympics that only athletes can see. Most shockingly, during her time in the Olympic village, she recalled seeing people hooking up “right out in the open,” where everyone can see. “On the grass, between buildings, people are getting down and dirty,” she said.
When you think about who Olympic athletes really are as people, though, it kind of makes sense that they’d be such horndogs. “When they’re training, it’s laser focus. When they go out for a drink, it’s 20 drinks. With a once-in-a-lifetime experience, you want to build memories, whether it’s sexual, partying or on the field,” she said. Basically? Olympians work hard, and they defffffinitely play hard. (Again, no pun intended. OK, I’ll stop.)
8.
I’m sure you’ve heard this story from the 2026 Winter Olympics — it’s been all over my explore pages and the news. After Norwegian skier Sturla Holm Lægreid won the bronze medal for the men’s 20km biathlon this year, he spoke to reporters about his win, as all athletes do. But in his victory speech, he did something that shook the internet: He admitted to cheating on his girlfriend.
After thanking his family, he said, “Half a year ago I met the love of my life. The world’s most beautiful and nicest person. Three months ago I made the biggest mistake of my life and cheated on her, and I told her about that a week ago.” I KNOW. BOMB DROPPED. Despite being in the Olympics and winning a medal, he called it the “worst week of [his] life,” saying that the Olympics hasn’t been his main priority. “My only way to solve it is to tell everything and put everything on the table, and hope that she can still love me,” he said.
9.
Now, let’s go back to the the ’90s and ’00s. Matthew Syed, table tennis player who competed in the 1992 and 2000 Olympics, is now an author — and following the Games, he wrote about his experience in an article titled “Sex and the Olympic city.” He referred to the Barcelona 1992 and Sydney 2000 Olympics as a “sex fest.”
Matthew also got real about just how much he’d been having sex at the Games compared to the rest of his life: “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, hilariously, he also said that Olympics was “for many of us Olympic virgins, as much about sex as it was about sport.”
10.
By now, you’re aware that the Olympics organizers have been relatively sex-positive, encouraging safe sex rather than no sex at all (with the exception of those potentially-anti-sex beds). But just as society hasn’t always been sex-positive, neither has the Olympics. The sex problem might’ve first started at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, with the earliest Olympics sex scandal I could find. At this Olympics, athletes were having so much outdoor sex, they had to ban it.
Specifically, officials kept finding condoms on the roofs of the dorms where athletes were staying, and decided that implementing this no-sex-outside ban was the only solution. And I guess it didn’t work, because the rule didn’t last too long. On the bright side, though, the Olympics organizers also gave out 8,500 condoms, warning athletes about the HIV/AIDS crisis.
11.
Athletes spend years pining after those Olympic gold medals, dreaming of the day when they’ll hopefully earn one. But perhaps they don’t consider what they’ll do with the medal once they get it…or what they’d trade it for. At the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, American skier Carrie Sheinberg recalled a wild story with two members of the German bobsledding team. They tried to trade their gold medals for some “group fun” with her.
Telling the story to ESPN, Sheinberg said the two German bobsledders “made it clear that they’d trade [her] their gold for all kinds of other favors.'” In response, Sheinberg made a funny innuendo about Tommy Moe, her fellow American skier who’d won the gold at that very Olympics: “Thanks, but Tommy Moe has a medal. I’ll play with his.” Yep, they’re not just athletic, those Olympians — they’re also pretty cheeky!
12.
You might think the hookups die down once the competition is over, but nope, you’re mistaken. On the plane ride home from Sydney to LA after the 2000 Summer Olympics, 100 Olympians were on the same flight home — and it was like a sex fest as well. There were so many Olympians on the plane that, at the beginning of the flight, the flight attendants smartly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, anybody who wishes to sleep, trade seats with someone in the front of the plane. Everybody else to the back with the Olympians.”
We’re not taking about discreetly waiting in line for the bathroom to join the mile-high club — people were out and about in the rows, getting it on. “Everybody partnered up fairly rapidly,” American Olympic target shooter Josh Lakatos recalled, adding that he’d “comfortably occupied row 50-something for roughly half an hour.” Javelin thrower Breaux Greer, another American who was on the plane, confessed to having sex with a famous Olympian in the bathroom (but he didn’t say who). “We’re going at it, and then — boing. I accidentally turn on the assistance light.”
13.
Breaux Greer — the same athlete from the previous story, who hooked up with a famous Olympian in the bathroom — also had his fair share of fun before leaving the Olympic Village. He was apparently “visited” by at least three women every single day during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, sometimes without more than a couple hours in between.
This one in particular makes me shudder. ESPN describes the women Greer hooked up with as: “An accomplished pole vaulter and former flame; a mighty hurdler who ‘tried to dominate me,’ Greer says; and a ‘very talented’ vacationer from Scandinavia.” (I really don’t want to know what those last two little anecdotes mean.) Reflecting on that experience, Greer said, “I was a happy man going into competition.” No kidding.
14.
Greg Louganis, an American gold medal-winning diver who competed in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, got real about his experiences flirting with Olympians from other countries. He recalled being “struck by the Russians’ sense of sexual liberation.” He said, “Culturally, they’re more openly affectionate toward each other, which I just drank up, since I was still discovering who I was.”
Although there was definitely lots of fooling around going on, Louganis noted that he had a crush on one Russian Olympian in particular. But it didn’t work out because his crush “was hooking up with one of the other male divers on the team” — and was also MARRIED. Dun dun dunnnnn! (From the wording of the story, it’s hard to tell whether he was married to the diver on his team, but either way, sounds like there’s no shortage of drama going on.)
15.
Although the Olympic committee has learned to stock up with as many condoms as possible, somehow, they’ve still ended up underestimating those athletes’ drives. At the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, officials had to send out an “emergency” shipment of almost 10,000 additional condoms after the initial supply of 100,000 was running “dangerously low.” I guess 14 condoms per person wasn’t enough.
And shipping those extra condoms was a bigger feat than you might think. The Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research had to get involved, working quickly to send out more. Executives at the foundation reflected on how important this job was: “When we heard about the condom shortage in Vancouver, we felt it important to respond immediately.” And it makes sense why this was a priority. “Safer sex is key to preventing the spread of the HIV virus.”
16.
I know we’re talking a lot about condoms, but that’s because there are simply so many shocking condom statistics. At the Beijing 2008 Olympics, they brought in 100,000 condoms, all with a very hilarious and special design on them…
…believe it or not, the Olympic motto “faster, higher, stronger” was actually written on the condom packaging. Believe it or not, there were 5,000 condoms leftover after these Games, which were then auctioned off. I’m dying to know how much people actually paid for one of those.
17.
The most amount of condoms at an Olympics (that I’ve heard, at least) was 450,000 at the 2016 Rio Olympics. This was three times more than the London Olympics four years prior. And let’s give some cheers for inclusivity, because this included — for the first time! — 100,000 female condoms.
They also added, on top of that, 175,000 packets of lube. All of this was available in vending machines, too, which makes me laugh. At the time, the Zika virus was a major concern in Brazil, which could be contracted either through mosquitos or sex — but it’s unclear whether the increase was a response to that. Either way, whew, that’s a LOT.
18.
Ryan Lochte, an American swimmer and 12-time Olympic medalist who competed in four Games, gave us an estimate of just how many people are sexually active in the Olympic Village. “I’d say it’s 70 percent to 75 percent of Olympians,” he estimated. “Hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.” But like, aren’t they…busy? I’m puzzled. How do they even have time to train with all the sex that’s supposedly going on?
In terms of his own experience, Ryan said it was a “big mistake” that he had a girlfriend during the Beijing 2008 Olympics. I guess he felt like he missed out on all the fun. “Now I’m single, so London should be really good,” he said prior to the London 2012 Olympics. “I’m excited.”
19.
Many coaches enforce rules on athletes like curfews or banning mixed-gender visits in rooms. There’s also security in the dorms. But when there’s a will, there’s a way — especially when you’ve got the motivation of an Olympic athlete. “There’s a lot of cameras and security everywhere, so you definitely have to be sneaky,” said American Olympic hockey player Hilary Knight.
Amanda Beard, an American swimmer who participated in four Games and won two gold medals, discussed just *how* much effort her fellow Olympians would put into finding a hookup spot. “People would walk around for miles to try to sneak somewhere,” she recalled. And honestly, I believe it.
20.
At the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, traffic on both Tinder and PornHub skyrocketed, specifically within the Olympic Village. Tinder usage increased by a whopping 348%, while Pornhub’s traffic shot up by 85% — with the top search around this time being threesomes. Why porn, you ask? “Before competing, it is online stuff,” an anonymous Olympic athlete told USA Today Sports. “Afterwards is when it’s time for the real thing.”
In response to this statistic, another athlete defended Olympians and their right to access as much naughty online content as they want. “You want to talk about porn? Okay, well yeah, we’re human and we have needs too, just like anyone else.” Which, hey, I guess is fair enough!
21.
In a video for Cosmopolitan, Gus Kenworthy, who skied in three Olympic Games starting in 2014, confessed that people actually lost their virginity in the Olympic Village. “I don’t know how gossipy I wanna be,” he started, but then decided to give us the juice. “I think there was, like, loss of virginity in our Olympic village, which is crazy.”
In the same video, American skeleton racer John Daly, who also competed in three Olympics in the 2010s, explained exactly why there’s so much hooking up going on. “It happens,” he said, laughing. “Incredibly good-looking, perfect bodies, tight spandex — of course there’s gonna be some hooking up. Do you expect anything else?!”
So… yeah. I definitely gasped several times when reading these stories, and I’m sure you did too. Who knew Olympic athletes were so… promiscuous? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!
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