What Athletes Have Said About Hooking Up in the Olympic Village Through the Years
Every two years, the summer or winter Olympics bring together the best athletes in the world to compete in the same city and live in the same Olympic village. They’re usually 20-somethings in peak physical fitness, forced into close proximity amid a high-stress, high-stakes environment.
It’s ripe for extracurricular activities.
In fact, People reports that 300,000 condoms have been distributed at the 2024 Paris Olympics in anticipation of such activities. That averages out to about 30 condoms per athlete.
The Olympic village’s long, storied history of hooking up dates back to at least the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where diver Greg Louganis commented on Team Russia’s “sense of sexual liberation.”
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"Culturally, they're more openly affectionate toward each other, which I just drank up, since I was still discovering who I was,” he recalled in a 2012 ESPN exposé about the topic. “But I had my eyes on one Soviet. I'd curl up in his lap; we'd hug and cuddle. I felt so protected…He was hooking up with one of the other male divers on the team."
By 1988, the Olympic Association had to ban outdoor sex after officials kept finding condoms on the roofs in the Olympic village in Seoul.
1992 Olympic swimmer Summer Sanders is credited with the motto “what happens in the village stays in the village,” but it turns out that’s not always the case. Keep scrolling for just some of the athletes who have opened up about hooking up at the Olympics.
Jamie Anderson
Snowboarder Jamie Anderson told Cosmopolitan in 2018 that dating apps like Tinder have been a game-changer in modern Olympic villages.
"My last Olympics [2014] was when I first learned about Tinder. And it was the best place to go because everybody on it was just a bunch of hot babe Olympians.”
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She added in an interview with Us, "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.”
Brandi Chastain
Soccer player Brandi Chastain found that in 1996, the Olympic dining hall in Atlanta provided a culture shock.
"When I walked in for the first time in Atlanta, there were loud cheers,” she told ESPN. “So we look over and see two French handballers dressed only in socks, shoes, jockstraps, neckties and hats on top of a dining table, feeding one another lunch. We're like, 'Holy cow, what is this place?'"
John Daly
Skeleton racer John Daly told Cosmopolitan, “It happens! Incredibly good-looking [athletes], perfect bodies, tight Spandex. Of course there's gonna be some hooking up! Would you expect anything else!?"
Alicia Ferguson
Australian soccer player Alicia Ferguson told ESPN that after the 2000 Sydney closing ceremonies, the Australian baseball and women’s soccer teams threw a party together with a massive bonfire.
"We did involve the fire wardens, who were very accommodating, and then we started hooking up around our very own Olympic Village bonfire,” she said. "They basically throw us all in a stadium and say, 'Just go for it, party hard, get drunk and do some groping.' Which we did, with some Canadians."
Breaux Greer
Javelin thrower Breaux Greer participated in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympic games, making the most of his time off the field.
"The girls are in skimpy panties and bras, the dudes in underwear, so you see what everybody is working with from the jump, even if their face is a 7, their body is a 20,” he told ESPN.
He also recounted a story about three women who visited him each day, just hours apart.
"I was a happy man going into competition," he said. "If you find somebody you like and who likes you, your world's complete for a second, and you compete well."
Josh Lakatos
American target shooter Josh Lakatos admitted to ESPN that in 2000, he commandeered what should have been an empty residence in the village for a massive party.
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"The next morning, swear to God, the entire women's 4x100 relay team of some Scandinavian-looking country walks out of the house, followed by boys from our side. And I'm just going, 'Holy crap, we'd watched these girls run the night before.'
"I'm running a friggin' brothel in the Olympic Village! I've never witnessed so much debauchery in my entire life.”
Ryan Lochte
Swimmer Ryan Lochte told ESPN he believes that 70 to 75 percent of Olympians are having sex in the village.
“Hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do,” he said.
“My last Olympics, I had a girlfriend -- big mistake," Lochte said of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. "Now I'm single, so London should be really good. I'm excited."
Zac Purchase
Olympic rower Zac Purchase tried to downplay the promiscuity of athletes in the village.
"It is an absolutely huge allocation of condoms," he said in a 2016 interview with The Guardian. "But it is all so far from the truth of what it's like to be in there. It's not some sexualized cauldron of activity. We're talking about athletes who are focused on producing the best performance of their lives."
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He also acknowledged, however, that after the competition, “There is a lot of celebration.”
Micah Richards
Team Great Britain soccer player Micah Richards recalled his 2012 London experience to Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer on "The Rest is Football" podcast.
"You have different campuses, Team GB in one block, Brazil, France, all these countries, and there's a massive room full of condoms. It was like 'What!?' Obviously promoting safe sex and, honest to god, I was on fire.
"I was on absolute fire, honestly. I was a little slimmer, a bit more ripped, bit more lean, it was summertime, walking around with my top off. One of the best times of my life, it was incredible."
Carrie Sheinberg
Carrie Sheinberg, who competed as an alpine skier at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics likened the village to “a magical, fairy-tale place, like Alice in Wonderland.”
“Everything is possible,” she told ESPN. “You could win a gold medal and you can sleep with a really hot guy."
She added that "it's also about finding something new. Olympians are adventurers. They look for a challenge, like having sex with someone who doesn't speak their language."
Hope Solo
Women’s soccer goalkeeper Hope Solo has been one of the more outspoken athletes on the Olympic village goings-on. She explained to ESPN that “if you don’t have discipline, the village can be a huge distraction.”
“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. I've seen people having sex right out in the open. On the grass, between buildings, people are getting down and dirty.
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"I may have snuck a celebrity back to my room without anybody knowing, and snuck him back out. But that's my Olympic secret."
Matthew Syed
English table tennis player Matthew Syed revealed to the Times of London that at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics he "got laid more often in those two and a half weeks (at the Barcelona games in '92) than the rest of my life up to that point.”
Susen Tiedtke
Former German long-jumper Susen Tiedtke laughed off the notion that Olympic organizers were trying to prevent athletes from having sex during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, which happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“[The sex ban] is a big laughingstock for me, it doesn’t work at all,” Tiedtke told German tabloid Bild, adding that “sex is always an issue in the village.”
Tiedtke added, “The athletes are at their physical peak at the Olympics. When the competition is over, they want to release their energy.”
