The Number Of Condoms Provided In The Olympic Village Is Absolutely Wild

With the 2022 Winter Olympic Games just a week away, the buzz around all things Olympics past and present has just begun. Set to be held in the Chinese city of Beijing, the 2022 Olympics bring about a world of questions: What is it like to be an Olympic athlete? Is it too late for the rest of us? Why is curling a thing? Well, it seems like some other things everyone is really curious about have to do with sex. How do Olympians find the time and energy to get it on? And are condoms provided in the Olympic Village?

I mean, with the pressure of representing your entire country on an international stage, there's no doubt most of the athletes in the games are going to have plenty of steam to blow off, if you know what I mean. And what better way to celebrate a victory — or make a crushing defeat slightly less crushing — than to get frisky with a never-ending supply of buff athletes?

Condoms have historically been available to athletes in the Olympic Village. According to Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo, a whopping 450,000 condoms were provided for athletes at the 2016 Rio Olympics: 350,00 male condoms and 100,00 female condoms, or roughly 2.5 condoms per day, per athlete (that’s 42 for the entirety of the two-week Games).

But the world has changed significantly since then — and so has the condom distribution in Olympic Village. For the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (which actually took place in July and August 2021), only 150,000 condoms were provided. Combined with the recyclable, cardboard beds, it didn’t take long for the Tokyo games to be ridiculed as “anti-sex.”

But is Beijing following that same pattern? An exact number of condoms for the 2022 Winter Games has not been released yet, but organizers told Reuters that they would be providing them all the same. “All Olympic-related units will provide appropriate quantities of condoms for free at the appropriate time to people who've checked in to stay inside the loop.”

There’s no telling what “appropriate quantities” means exactly, but journalists who were in “the loop” reported that five free condoms were left in their hotel rooms. For competing athletes, however, it seems like more condoms were allotted.

There's really no point in pretending that putting hundreds of the world's most famous and attractive competitors together in the same space for 17 days wouldn't end in a bunch of steamy hookups. (At least they can be safe, though!)

The truth is, the façade perpetuating nothing but wholesome happenings in the Olympic Village first began to crumble way back in the 1992 Games, when Olympic officials started ordering condoms like there was no tomorrow, according to ESPN. And apparently, this frisky frenzy has become an even bigger deal for the Olympics in the years since, so much so that as of 2016, there was reportedly someone at the Olympics whose specific job is to wander around with an enormous bag of condoms. (What I’d do to see his resume now.)

Honestly, anyone who can even begin to make a dent in almost 50 condoms in just a little over two weeks — while attempting to give the best athletic performance of their lives ever — definitely does deserve a gold medal.

Where things really get interesting, though, is when you take a look at the condom numbers throughout the years. According to the Guardian, the amount of condoms needed to meet the demand has (almost) consistently continued to climb. While the 1988 Seoul Olympics began with 8,500 condoms being provided, 90,000 were provided at the Barcelona Games in 1992, and eventually, 130,000 were provided at the Athens Games in 2004. At the Sydney Games in 2000, officials called in 20,000 condoms, in addition to the 70,000 they had already provided, because they ran out.

Of course, health precautions have caused a dip in these condom numbers, so there’s no way to know how the condom distribution will play out in the future. Still, if history is anything to go by, it seems somewhat inevitable that athletes will be looking for some TLC in their free time. Apparently, gay dating app Grindr got so lit during the 2012 London Games that the app crashed pretty much as soon as some of the first teams got off the plane, according to the Mirror.

But hey, no judgment here. If having a truly wild amount of sex can help keep your head in the game, then by all means, have at it. And with such a clear emphasis on making sure there are more than enough resources for everyone to practice safe sex, I guess what mom doesn't know can't hurt her.

Although the exact amount of condoms that are going to be made available this time around hasn't yet been released, if past trends are any indication, it's going to be a lot.