The Not-So-Secret Sex Lives of Olympians

Vive la France! The Summer 2024 Olympics are here…and just in time, may I add! With this season of Love Island coming to a close, our hyper-fixation of the romantic lives of strangers needs to be satisfied. Luckily for us, roughly 10,500 new hot bombshells are about to enter a new Villa, the Olympic Village. Of course, we are all interested in watching some of the best athletes on the planet compete for the coveted gold medal, but if someone said they aren’t interested in what is going on back in the village, they’d be lying.

It does raise a few questions: when they are not competing, are Olympians having sex during the Olympics? Does their incredible athleticism allow them to have gold medal-level sex? Can those cardboard beds even withstand near superhuman sex? Popstar is back with the need-to-know about the not-so-secret sex lives of Olympians and the Olympic Village sex culture.

The link between the Olympics and sex goes back as far as the written record. In recent years, fascination with the sex lives of athletes in general and Olympians, in particular, has reached an all-time high. First off, the answer is yes – Olympians are having sex at the Olympics and likely have been having sex at these games since the ancient Greeks. In fact, they have so much sex, that Grindr (then a website) crashed in 2012 when athletes began arriving in London for the games there. I think it is safe to say that Olympians are a sex-positive bunch.

Speaking of safe, to promote safe sex, condoms have been given out to athletes participating in the Olympics since the 1988 games in Seoul when they were introduced to raise awareness about HIV prevention. In 2000, the number of condoms distributed rose to 90,000, and during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, organizers handed out a record-breaking 450,000 condoms to athletes.

The City of Love will be no exception, as 300,000 condoms are estimated to be distributed this year. turning the City of Love into the City of Love-Making. Perhaps the games should be referred to as the O-O-Olympics for the record-breaking number of orgasms that will likely occur.

So if history has taught us anything, it is that Olympians are looking for sex. But will they be able to have it this time around? Are these cardboard beds even built for knocking boots for an ordinary person, let alone Olympians? These cardboard beds were originally introduced in Tokyo for their sustainability, but rumor has it (circa Adele) that they are not designed to hold the weight of two people, therefore discouraging sexual relations. 

By now, I am sure we have all seen the viral videos of Olympians, like Tom Daley, jumping on the beds to show their sturdiness. However, it remains to be seen if these sustainable sleepers are sleepover-ready. That being said, I am sure the best athletes in the world can figure out how to have sex with, or without a bed!

Even though the reputation of the Olympic Village as a massive hook-up spot has become common knowledge, it’s not necessarily condoned. Conservatives in the Mormon capital of Salt Lake City held protests at the 2002 Winter Olympics when they found out that 100,000+ condoms were distributed there. 

In addition to the morality police, some coaches and athletes themselves can also be firmly planted in the no-sex-before-competition category. Instead of puritanical reasons, these anti-sex stances are rooted in the long-held belief that having sex before competition can reduce your strength, concentration, speed, and agility. That’s right, some participants believe that knocking boots will set you up for a bronze medal, or worse.

This raises yet another slew of questions: will having sex affect the way you perform in your Olympic event? Does fornication lead to failure? There is limited information on this exact topic as there have been very few studies done on the subject, and they have mostly been done on men. That being said, from the available research, it seems that the general consensus is that sex does not affect athletic performance in any detectable way.

One study published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness found that 15 high-level athletes between the ages of 20 and 40 showed no significant difference in mental or physical performance when they were tested after having sex the night before and after abstaining from sex the night before. Testosterone levels were not affected, either. The study did, however, show that there was a slight elevation in heart rate in the mornings after sex, but the difference did not affect the outcome of the other tests. 

Another study, done by researchers at California State University, San Marcos, found that among 12 healthy men with an average age of 25, leg strength (hamstring and quadricep torque specifically) and endurance did not change when they were tested the day after they had sex and the day after they abstained from sex. They also didn’t self-report any differing feelings of physical or mental fatigue. 

There is some speculation that sex before an athletic competition can have psychological effects. For instance, if you had an unsatisfying sexual experience before a game or match, you might suffer from feelings of self-doubt or a lack of confidence. In contrast, if you had the best sex of your life, you might feel like such a stud that you perform better mentally and physically. For obvious reasons, it’s even more difficult to conduct scientific experiments based on the quality of sex so research in this area is lacking.

While Olympians may have reached a superhuman level of athleticism, they are still, in fact, only human. I mean, if you were living in a community of some of the best bodies on earth, wouldn’t you be interested in putting those bodies to good use? When the Olympians have finished competing in Paris and the final medals have been awarded, many of these amazing athletes will no doubt decide to celebrate by going for the gold differently. The only question that remains is what sound a cardboard bed makes during intercourse. I guess this is yet another thing only Olympians will get to experience.