Dating apps have seen a surge in users around the Paris Olympics Village as thousands of athletes converge on the city looking for hook-ups, MailOnline has learned.
Sites such as Tinder, Bumble and particularly Hinge have seen a spike in usages in the St Denis area of the city – the location of the competitors’ base – as hundreds of new users log in to find love.
And insiders believe that despite Paris 2024 bosses installing ‘anti bonk’ beds made from cardboard with only room for one person in an anti-passion drive, this year’s Games in the City of Love are set to be the sexiest ever.
As one sprinter told MailOnline: ‘When you pack 14,500 of the world’s fittest athletes into an Olympic village… you can guess what will happen.
‘Before the Games there’s not much bed-hopping. But once competition starts, we go mad for it.’
Usain Bolt was said to have had a particularly lively all-night party with three members of Sweden’s handball team shortly after he stormed to victory in the 100m final at London 2012
Condoms are seen inside the athletes’ village ahead of the Paris Olympics earlier this week
Despite the unconducive-to-coupling beds, organisers are taking no chances and have distributed some 200,000 condoms at various points around the complex – equivalent to 14 for every single athlete.
The free condoms will come in the blue, red, green and purple colours of the Paris 2024 Games and be housed in unbranded packaging accompanied infection prevention messages in English. The athletes will also be given tubes of lubricant.
While hundreds of hook-ups will be arranged on dating apps, many athletes arrive in the French capital already in relationships and trying to arrange dates.
Among the randy couples staying at the athletes’ village are glamorous British tennis number one Katie Boulter and her Australian boyfriend Alex de Minaur.
Then there is Ukrainian Wimbledon favourite Elina Svitolina and her French partner Gael Monfils. They will be celebrating their third wedding anniversary during the games, cheered on by their 21-month-old daughter, Skai.
Tom Daley shared a video from inside his bedroom in the Paris Olympic Village on Monday, as he jumped up and down on his cardboard bed to show that it was surprisingly sturdy
Meanwhile Belgian Gabriella Willems and her Italian boyfriend Christian Parlati will both be representing their countries in Judo – before presumably grappling with each other in their down time.
There are Team USA fencers Lee Kiefer and Gerek Meindhardt who will both be competing in Paris – their third Olympic Games together as a couple.
Keifer made Olympic history for Team GB at Tokyo 2020 claiming a first-ever foil gold.
Some sporting couples have little in common apart from their mutual presence in Paris.
Take Austrian sailor Lara Vadlau and her German footballer partner Lea Schueller who are hoping to be able to meet up in Marseille – the host city for all sailing events and the location of Germany’s first two group matches.
Fencing athlete Rosella Fiamingo and her swimmer boyfriend Gregorio Paltrinieri, both from Italy, will be looking to increase their medal hauls at Paris 2024.
One of the beds made from cardboard which are being used by athletes at the Olympic Village
Athletes will typically share rooms with another member of same sex at the Paris Olympics
Sprint royalty Noah Lyles from USA and Jamaica’s Junelle Bromfield are both expected to pick up medals on the athletics track at the Stade de France – while enjoy date nights in between training.
Whereas Brazilian surfers Joao Chianca and Luana Silva will be thousands of miles away as both will be riding the Pacific Ocean waves off the beach of Tahiti.
Meanwhile Slovakian race walkers Dominik Cerny and Hana Burzalova are set to head down the aisle, at a more leisurely pace, when the Olympic Games are over.
Katie and Alex’s relationship has long fascinated fans – and they were asked about it even more following the release of sexy romcom Challengers earlier this year.
The X-rated love triangle movie is set on the tennis tour and stars Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist as fictional tennis players.
And it prompted the real life couple to be their most open yet about their own tournament trysts when interviewed together – telling fans how they had gone to great lengths to disguise the fact they had been sleeping together.
Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan has tested out the sturdiness of the Olympic ‘anti-sex beds’
‘Remember that time when we were having breakfast on like separate tables?’ a giggly Boulter said
‘That was the early stages,’ De Minaur chipped in. ‘We would rock down to breakfast at different times.’
Boulter then explained it was ‘different times, like 10 minutes later’ with her boyfriend confirming they did it to ‘avoid speculation’.
‘It’s so true, so people wouldn’t find out,’ Boulter said as De Minaur added: ‘Works every time!’
Couples representing the same country are able to share accommodation at the athletes’ village and in previous games this has drawn known romances into the public eye in the same way Boulter and De Minaur have experienced.
Team GB’s golden cycling couple Jason and Laura Kenny were able to spend romantic time while they both won medals at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
But athletes from different countries must either find alternative accommodation or find precious moments together despite being housed separately.
The Athletes Village is made up a series of apartment blocks which are taken by nations
Athletes will be housed in dorm-style accommodation, shown in this picture taken on Tuesday
However, Belgium Judo competitor Gabriella Willems has told how it is her dream come true to compete alongside her Italian partner Christian Parlati.
Willems said: ‘After a long qualification period together, we’re excited to compete on the same day at the Olympics.
‘For Christian, it’s his second Olympic Games, and for me, it’s my first after missing Tokyo due to injury.
‘We’ve supported each other for seven years, and sharing this moment is a dream come true.
‘Hopefully, July 31st will be a happy day filled with tears of joy for both of us.’
Among couples who met while competing at Olympic Games include Team USA skiing legend Mikaela Shiffrin who met her husband-to-be Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, from Norway.
After three years of dating, the couple announced their engagement in April this year.
Previously Britain’s fastest woman Dina Asher-Smith had a relationship with Britain’s fastest man Zharnel Hughes. They split in 2018 but remain friends and are both competing for Team GB in Paris.
Olympic couples from history include USA’s triple gold medal sprinter – the fastest woman ever recorded – FloJo Joyner and husband Alfrederick Joyner, who won gold in the triple jump at LA1984.
Britain’s most famous swimmer Sharron Davies, who won a silver medal at Moscow 1980 married 400m runner Derek Redmond in 1994. They divorced in 2000.
But it’s not just existing couples who will be trying to steal time together during the games – there will be many more who will be coming together for the first time as that surge in dating app usage demonstrates.
One member of the coaching staff revealed: ‘This year it’s all about Hinge.
‘At previous Games athletes hooked up via Tinder but now the young guys are all using Hinge to get dates.’
Katie Boulter has been dating Australian boyfriend Alex de Minaur since 2021
Susen Tiedtke, a German former long jumper who competed at two games, told at the last games why so much sex happens.
Tiedtke said in 2021: ‘The athletes are at their physical peak at the Olympics. When the competition is over, they want to release their energy.’
‘They want to live out their energy, there is one party after the other, then alcohol comes into play,’ she told Bild. ‘It happens that you have sex and there are enough people who also strive for that.
Tiedtke described suggestions that organisers frown on hook ups and try to impose a no-sex rule as ‘a big laughing stock’ and stating that ‘it doesn’t work at all’.
Athlete accounts of wild sex parties at previous Olympic Games are the stuff of legend.
Perhaps the most famous athlete of modern times, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, was said to have had a particularly lively all-night party with three members of Sweden’s handball team shortly after he stormed to victory in the 100m final at London 2012.
Ukrainian Elina Svitolina has been married to fellow pro player Gael Monfils since 2021
And at Rio 2016 the world’s fastest man wasted no time in convincing a beautiful Brazilian Samba dancer to join him at the Athletes Village after another convincing win.
Or there was Team USA swimmer Ryan Lochte, who reportedly had sex on a balcony at Athens 2004, once said: ‘I’d say it’s 75 per cent of Olympians having sex.’
Casual sex is reputedly so rampant that some athletes joke the second Olympic motto should be: ‘What happens in the village stays in the village.’
Team USA goalkeeper Hope Solo revealed: ‘There’s a lot of sex going on. I’ve seen people having sex right out in the open. On the grass, between buildings, people getting down and dirty.’
While a shooter from Team USA shooter once recalled: ‘I’d never witnessed the debauchery seen at Sydney 2000 in my whole life.
‘My apartment was like a brothel in the Olympic Village.
Team USA fencers Lee Kiefer and Gerek Meindhardt will both be competing in Paris – their third Olympic Games together as a couple
‘The entire women’s 4×100 relay team of a Scandinavian-looking country walked out of the house one morning, followed by the USA track and field fellas.’
With sex on many of the 14,500 athletes’ minds, Paris2024 organisers have tried to make sure they concentrate primarily on the job in hand – their events.
The accepted protocol – even if not everyone sticks to it – is very much: medals first, making love second.
First expected to buckle under the weight of their testosterone are members of the world’s various Rugby Sevens teams, which is among the first events to finish.
‘We’ve got matches until two days before the closing ceremony, but the Rugby Seven guys are all done on Tuesday,’ one hockey player told MailOnline as members of Serbia’s female basketball team strolled past.
‘Then they’ve got two days until they get kicked out of the Athletes Village. That’s when you make friends with the Norwegian handball team and see if there’s sparkle.’
Slovakian race walkers Dominik Cerny and Hana Burzalova are set to head down the aisle, at a more leisurely pace, when the Olympic Games are over. Cerny is seen proposing last August
There have been suggestions that organisers this year have tried to put a dampener on sexual appetites by installing so-called cardboard single beds that can only fit on person.
Team GB diving star Tom Daley, who is embarking on his fifth Olympics, went viral with a video showing him messing about on his bed.
To the soundtrack of Charli XCX’s ‘Apple’, Daley’s demonstrated his springboard technique on his own bed before declaring it ‘pretty sturdy’.
Playful Daley also made a particularly fruity joke about the Olympic rings.
But others have debunked any suggestion that there’s an anti-sex agenda. Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan branded the cardboard bed story ‘fake news’ .
Athletes are also expected to visit the many romantic landmarks and venues that has led Paris to be known as the City of Love.
A track and field coach added: ‘I’m a happily married man, but there are a lot of young guys here. Once they’ve finished their event they like to have fun.
‘I’ve seen at least four big cupboards packed with condoms and anything else they could need.’
