Every four years, thousands of the world’s fittest athletes gather to compete on the biggest stage. But it’s long been whispered that when the day’s events are done, there’s a whole lot more going on in the village than just sleeping or stretching.
Even though the beds are made of cardboard—something you’d think would make things difficult—officials have been handing out condoms to athletes since 1988 to promote safe practices. And those have definitely come in handy over the years.
In an in-depth ESPN feature about the Olympic village’s steamy reputation, Lakatos was refreshingly honest about what really went down during his time there.
He had already taken home a silver medal in the 1996 Games but chose to stay past his official duties in Sydney. He admitted that he stuck around because he knew what kind of fun tends to happen once the cameras stop rolling.
Olympian Snuck Back Into the Village After Being Told to Leave
Even though he and his teammates were supposed to turn in their keys and head home, Lakatos came up with a plan to stay longer. He even got help from a maid who agreed not to report him.
He ended up staying solo on the ground floor of a three-story unit, and once word spread, athletes from all over began showing up—among them U.S. track and field athletes and members of a ‘Scandinavian’ women’s relay team.
The 52-year-old described what happened next: “The next morning, I swear to God, the entire women’s 4×100 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.'”
In that same ESPN article, a former U.S. women’s soccer goalkeeper shared that some Olympians weren’t even trying to be discreet. She claimed she saw couples getting intimate “right out in the open”, including “on the grass” and “between buildings”.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, organizers handed out around 300,000 condoms to about 10,500 athletes. And according to reports, there were “no restrictions regarding sexual activity”.