The Olympics and sex. Lots and lots of sex.

Sex and Parties in the Olympic Village: Speed Reading The Secret Olympian’s Exposé

Should I Stay or Should I Go

Being an Olympian means you get to stay at the Olympic Village with some very famous people. But not if the very famous people don’t stay there. Cyclist Bradley Wiggins, who just became Britain’s most decorated Olympian, said he saw Rafael Nadal unwisely mixing his whites and colors in the laundry room. The U.S. basketball team doesn’t stay there—the beds are too small—but they get mobbed when they visit. And good thing Roger Federer stayed in the Village in Sydney eight years ago—he met his wife there.

Temptations

“Everywhere, everything is dangerously free.” Team barbecues, coffee after coffee after coffee, unlimited 24/7 access to the food hall, McDonald’s (it’s busy from day one). There are game rooms, where people do nothing except play videogames, sometimes all night, to the point of almost missing their competitions.

Peoplewatch

“Play guess-the-sport (shaven legs and tiny little T-Rex arms—cyclists; heaviest makeup—synchronized swimmers) and take your Olympic manual to tick off the rare or more beautiful species. Swedish sailing team—tick. French volleyball—tick. Cuban heavyweight boxer—tick … Playing human safari, spotting the most unusual shapes and sizes, is a good way to kill time in the Village.” There’s also a lot of flirting. More on that later.

Skipping the Opening Ceremony

It might seem like a great honor to attend the Opening Ceremony, but lots of athletes actually would rather sit it out, because “90 percent of the four-hour marathon is dull or weird. Or both.” Some athletes also don’t want to be on their feet for that long ahead of a competition.

Parties

In Athens, the British Olympic Association booked a school as a private getaway for British athletes—a team lodge. At night, athletes visit the various other team lodges and party. The Dutch lodge is called the Heineken House. In London, the Germans hired the Museum of London Docklands. In Beijing, Budweiser sponsored the American House and created Club Bud, a 3,600-square-meter space that was the place to be. Free beer everywhere, but that’s too bad, because Olympians have a low tolerance (most have been training and swearing off alcohol for years).

But they can dance all night—they’re the world’s best athletes.

“Those at Athens still talk about the Sports Illustrated event,” the Secret Olympian writes. Another British medallist recalled: “It was awesome. You had topless dancers. The U.S. synchronized swimming team doing their thing in the pool.” Swimsuit models were there.

The most poignant party was held in Munich in 1972, after 11 Israeli athletes were killed by terrorists. “Following the closing ceremony, the athletes returned to the Village and converged on the discotheque … athletes of all nations singing along to [John] Lennon in one unified voice.”

Sex

“Sex, and plenty of it, increasing exponentially through the Games as more and more athletes finish competing,” the Secret Olympian writes. Condoms were first distributed in significant amounts at the Seoul Games in 1988. The 1990 Albertville Winter Games officials had to refill the condom machines every two hours. Two years later, at Barcelona, between 50,000 and 80,000 condoms were distributed to 9,500 athletes. Atlanta was less sexy: 15,000 condoms for 10,500 athletes. In Sydney, the number jumped back to 70,000—for the first week. Authorities had to order an additional 20,000. By Salt Lake City in 2002, a plan was announced to distribute 250,000, later cut to 100,000. Athens stood at 130,000, Beijing readied 100,000, and Vancouver another 100,000.

“However, I’m sorry to admit that there isn’t quite as much sex as these headline-grabbing statistics indicate,” the Secret Olympian says. A hockey player reported the Indian team dumping hundreds of them in their kit bags so they could sell them back home. Another British hockey player, Steven Batchelor, said the team made water-bombs with them and chucked them at people in the Village.

McDonald’s

All the food is free, so it’s not uncommon for athletes to chow down three or four ice-cream bars a day. And after a big night out, post-competition athletes gather at McDonald’s, which is the only branded food outlet because of its sponsorship. “Maurice Greene, the American sprinter, was even spotted in Athens enjoying a Big Mac … the day before his 4 x 100m final.”

Closing Time

The closing ceremony is especially poignant, as many athletes face the reality of putting an end to something they’ve dreamed about and worked at for years. A few bask in glory. Most lament missed chances or wish they’d performed better.

Going Home

You get to meet the queen and the prime minister when you go back home, and there’s probably a few months of congratulatory visits from friends and families—and partying and sponsorships for the most famous athletes. But after that, it’s life: “What the hell do I do now?”

Hope Solo Says, 'There's Lots of Sex' in Olympic Village: Fan's Take

According to U.S. Women's Soccer Team goalkeeper Hope Solo, a whole lot of Olympic athletes are scoring in ways that don't involve the sport they're participating in. Solo has seen it all and told ESPN what athletes really do with their down time during their two-week stay in Olympic Village.

Solo said, "There's a lot of sex going on. 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."

It makes sense really. You put thousands of young people who have extremely fit bodies all in one little area of London, there's going to be hook-ups and one night stands galore. Athletes don't have to worry about running in to each other again after the 17-day competition; that is until the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
How would that conversation go in Rio? "Hey, remember me from London? Here's my other room key if you want to stop by and relive our… memory." Awkward.

More than 100,000 condoms were distributed to athletes for the London Olympics. It took only one week for athletes at the Olympic Village at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games to run out of the 70,000 condoms supplied.

I like how Hope had the wholesome, not opinionated image when she competed in the Beijing Olympics in 2008. She never whispered a controversial word and she never criticized any commentators on social media, which she's getting a lot of heat for. It all could be an attempt to drum up publicity for her upcoming autobiography, but if the media gives her this enormous attention during the games; she has every right to say what she thinks.

Hope also told ESPN that it was almost too easy to meet people. I'm sure it is when you're north of six-feet tall, built like a Greek goddess and you've been on many well known magazines' "hot" lists. I'm sure every male athlete in the Olympic Village knows everything about the U.S. women's soccer team - the male athletes that are single, of course.

Of the 10,000 athletes, I wonder how many of them put their relationships on hold before they got on an airplane to London. I bet it's a little more than half, and it was probably more guys than girls.

Hope said it's easy to strike up a conversation. She explained: "It starts with, 'What sport do you play?' All of a sudden, you're fist-bumping."

A male athlete in the Olympic Village knows exactly what sport Solo plays. "Fist-bumping," I guess that's what Hope calls "it."

The real games in the Olympic Village will not be televised

AMERICAN TARGET SHOOTER Josh Lakatos faced a conundrum. Halfway through the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, he and his rifle-toting teammates were finished with their events, and the U.S. Olympic Committee and team officials had ordered them to turn in the keys to their three-story house and head back to the States. But Lakatos didn't want to leave. He knew from his experience four years earlier in Atlanta, where he'd won silver, that the Olympic Village was just about to erupt into a raucous party, and there was no way he was going to miss it. So he asked the maid at the emptied-out dwelling if she'd kindly look the other way as he jimmied the lock. "I don't care what you do," she replied.

Within hours, word of the nearly vacant property had spread. Popping up once every two years, the Olympic Village is a boisterous city within a city: chock-full of condos, midrises and houses as well as cafés, barbershops, arcades, discos and TV lounges. The only thing missing is privacy -- nearly everyone is stuck with a roommate. So while Lakatos claimed a first-floor suite for himself, the remaining rooms were there for the taking. The first to claim space that night were some Team USA track and field fellas.

"The next morning," Lakatos says, "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.'"

And on it went for eight days as scores of Olympians, male and female, trickled into the shooter's house -- and that's what everyone called it, Shooters' House -- at all hours, stopping by an Oakley duffel bag overflowing with condoms procured from the village's helpful medical clinic. After a while, it dawned on Lakatos: "I'm running a friggin' brothel in the Olympic Village! I've never witnessed so much debauchery in my entire life."

TAKE YOUR MARK
Home to more than 10,000 athletes at the Summer Games and 2,700 at the Winter, the Olympic Village is one of the world's most exclusive clubs. To join, prospective members need only have spectacular talent and -- we long assumed -- a chaste devotion to the most intense competition of their lives. But the image of a celibate Games began to flicker in '92 when it was reported that the Games' organizers had ordered in prophylactics like pizza. Then, at the 2000 Sydney Games, 70,000 condoms wasn't enough, prompting a second order of 20,000 and a new standing order of 100,000 condoms per Olympics.

Many Olympians, past and present, abide by what Summer Sanders, a swimmer who won two gold medals, a silver and a bronze in Barcelona, calls the second Olympic motto: "What happens in the village stays in the village." Yet if you ask enough active and retired athletes often enough to spill their secrets, the village gates will fly open. It quickly becomes clear that, summer or winter, the games go on long after the medal ceremony. "There's a lot of sex going on," says women's soccer goalkeeper Hope Solo, a gold medalist in 2008. How much sex? "I'd say it's 70 percent to 75 percent of Olympians," offers world-record-holding swimmer Ryan Lochte, who will be in London for his third Games. "Hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do."

GET SET ...
The games begin as soon as teams move in a week or so before opening ceremonies. "It's like the first day of college," says water polo captain Tony Azevedo, a veteran of Beijing, Athens and Sydney who is returning to London. "You're nervous, super excited. Everyone's meeting people and trying to hook up with someone."

Which is perfectly understandable, if not to be expected. Olympians are young, supremely healthy people who've been training with the intensity of combat troops for years. Suddenly they're released into a cocoon where prying reporters and overprotective parents aren't allowed. Pre-competition testosterone is running high. Many Olympians are in tapering mode, full of excess energy because they're maintaining a training diet of up to 9,000 calories per day while not actually training as hard. The village becomes "a pretty wild scene, the biggest melting pot you've been in," says Eric Shanteau, an American who swam in Beijing and will be heading to London.

The dining hall is among everyone's first village stops. "When I walked in for the first time in Atlanta," says women's soccer player Brandi Chastain, "there were loud cheers. 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?'" Many liken it to a high school cafeteria, "except everyone's beautiful," says Julie Foudy, who has two golds and one silver from playing soccer in three Olympics and is now an analyst for ESPN. "We'd graze over our food for hours watching all the eye candy, wondering why I got married."

From one end of the village to the other, flags hang from windows and music blares from balconies. "Unlike at a bar, it's not awkward to strike up a conversation because you have something in common," Solo says. "It starts with, 'What sport do you play?' All of a sudden, you're fist-bumping." BMXer Jill Kintner, who won bronze in Beijing, says the Italians are particularly inviting: "They leave their doors open, so you look in and see dudes in thongs running circles around each other."

On the way to practice fields, "the girls are in skimpy panties and bras, the dudes in underwear, so you see what everybody is working with from the jump," says Breaux Greer, an American javelin thrower. "Even if their face is a 7, their body is a 20." In Beijing, even the adolescent female gymnasts got sassy with the water polo and judo boys who shared their training room. "That's where most of my socialization took place -- in a tub, up to my chest in ice water," says silver medalist Alicia Sacramone, then 20, who served as den mother to her teammates. "The younger girls would try to flirt with stuff like, 'Look at that butt on him!' I'm like, 'Excuse me, did that just come out of your mouth? Don't pay attention to his butt!'"

Quickly the reality sinks in that the village is "just a magical, fairy-tale place, like Alice in Wonderland, where everything is possible," says Carrie Sheinberg, an alpine skier at the '94 Winter Games and a reporter for subsequent Olympics. "You could win a gold medal and you can sleep with a really hot guy."

And no matter your taste, the village has got you covered. The soccer girls? "All hot, and they dress like rock stars," one male swimmer says. Male gymnasts? "They are like lovable little Ewoks," Kintner says. Sacramone has a few favorites of her own: "As far as best bodies, it's swimmers and water polo players, because that's an insane workout. And the track guys, they're sneaky-cute. Very serious, but when they lighten up, you're like, 'Oh, you're kind of adorable.'"

The challenge athletes face is what to do with their urges and when. "If you don't have discipline, the village can be a huge distraction," Solo admits. Some swear off sex until their events are done; others make it part of their pre-event routine. American shot-putter and silver and bronze medalist John Godina thought he'd seen it all in Atlanta: late-night hookups, friends disappearing for days at a time. But he hadn't seen anything like the dorm room in Sydney he shared with a javelin thrower, which had instantly become a revolving door of women without backstories. "It's like Vegas," Godina explains. "You learn not to ask a lot of questions."

That randy roommate of Godina's, Greer, picks up the story: Each day, the shaggy blond was visited by three women, sometimes just hours apart -- an accomplished pole vaulter and former flame; a mighty hurdler who "tried to dominate me," Greer says; and a "very talented" vacationer from Scandinavia. Greer says his Olympian partners were, like him, looking to "complete the Olympics training puzzle." When his event did come around, Greer nailed Athens' longest toss in prelims before a knee injury sidelined him. "I was a happy man going into competition," he says. "If you find somebody you like and who likes you, your world's complete for a second, and you compete well."

Still, some coaches try to limit late-night activities by enforcing 11 p.m. noise curfews, banning alcohol consumption or, in the case of USA Swimming, forbidding cross-gender visitation in bedrooms. Amanda Beard, with two golds, four silvers and one bronze medal to her name, was in a relationship with another swimmer during the 2000 Games but says, "People would walk around for miles to try to sneak somewhere."

Many on-the-prowl athletes maintain that they're driven by a simple human need: intimacy, if only for a moment or three. For most Olympians, the ramp-up to the Games is lonely. Not unlike movie stars on a far-flung movie shoot, the Olympics present the perfect opportunity to find a partner who understands where they're coming from. "Think about how hard it is to meet someone," Azevedo says. "Now take an Olympian who trains from 6 a.m. until 5 p.m. every day. When the hell are you supposed to meet someone? Now the pressure is done, you're meeting like-minded people ... and boom."

GO!
Typically, the swimmers are some of the lucky ones who wrap up early. For Lochte, that typically means "hitting a local pub and drinking with the soccer hooligans," he says. But a teammate in Athens had a better idea: sex on his village balcony. "Another team saw it, which led to a big argument because they accused me. I said, 'No, I'm innocent,'" Lochte says, laughing. "I'm always innocent." After his team finished its events in Beijing, "our coach sat us down and gave us what I can only describe as the birds-and-the-bees talk," says gold medalist Cullen Jones. "We're like, 'Okay, this is extremely awkward.'"

Just outside the village are sponsors parties. But what most Olympians want, in the end, is to bring the party back to the village.

The athlete compound soon becomes the site of an uneasy dance between jocks on a post-competition bender and those who have yet to compete. Says Swiss swimmer Dominik Meichtry: "I'd get home from the clubs at 6 or 7 a.m., and I'd feel bad for the track and field guys. They're getting on a bus and we're intoxicated, wearing fedoras, looking like crap." As the curtain falls on more events, the action accelerates. Displaced roommates become commonplace, with the standard sock-on-doorknob serving as the signal for "please go away." Before long, Foudy says, "it turns into a frat party with a very nice gene pool." And heaps of stamina. "Athletes are extremists," Solo says. "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."

Those who desire a little privacy can borrow a hotel room from their agents or visiting friends. "You can get pretty much whatever you want if you flash your medal," says one American female. "That usually does the trick." Not quite everything. At the Lillehammer Games in 1994, two German bobsledders tried using their medals as currency. "They made it clear that they'd trade me their gold for all kinds of other favors," Sheinberg says. "I said jokingly, 'Thanks, but Tommy Moe has a medal. I'll play with his.'" The Germans were hoping for some group fun, which is not uncommon in the village. One skier tells a story from the Vancouver Games in 2010, when six athletes -- "some Germans, Canadians and Austrians" -- got together at a home outside the Whistler village. "It was a late-night whirlpool party. It turned into a whirlpool orgy."

"This is a diplomatic relations trip," says Godina, "maybe because they feel they never have to see each other again." Adds Sheinberg: "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."

The sense of discovery can be powerful. At the 1976 Montreal Games, three-time Olympic diver and four-time gold medalist Greg Louganis, appearing in his first Olympics at age 16, developed a kinship with the boys on the Soviet Union diving team and soon found himself partying in their rooms. "Once events were over, our entire diet was caviar, vodka and Russian champagne. It was crazy," Louganis says. He was particularly struck by the Russians' sense of sexual liberation. "Culturally, they're more openly affectionate toward each other, which I just drank up, since I was still discovering who I was. But I had my eyes on one Soviet. I'd curl up in his lap; we'd hug and cuddle. I felt so protected." It didn't progress beyond that, Louganis says. "He was hooking up with one of the other male divers on the team" -- not to mention married.

AND KEEP GOING ...
By the eve of the closing ceremonies, all of the events have wrapped, all bets are off and the home team often hosts one hell of a party. That was certainly the case in Sydney, where Australia's baseball and women's soccer teams threw a joint bash complete with a massive bonfire. "Who knew the village furniture could burn so well," kids Alicia Ferguson, an Aussie footballer. "We did involve the fire wardens, who were very accommodating, and then we started hooking up around our very own Olympic Village bonfire."

And after the men's hockey gold medal game in Vancouver, which Canada won, a dry lounge in the village exploded into a full-blown rager. "If you were walking by, you would've thought it was a high school party," says NHLer Bobby Ryan of the silver-winning American squad. "I'm talking booze, people randomly making out, everybody else cheering them on. And that was the PG stuff. Then everything went inside."

And then there's the one party that can't be missed: the closing ceremony. Says Ferguson: "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." Here's what you don't see on TV: all of the athletes who arrive inebriated and, throughout the ceremony, sneak back and forth between the infield and the stadium with drinks. Somewhere in the middle of this party, typically, is America's women's soccer team, whose tournament runs the duration of the Games. "This is our chance to let loose," Chastain says. "Our hair is on fire, we're leaving the next morning, and we're going to enjoy our last 24 hours." After the Beijing Games, the women went, well, Hollywood. Solo recounts the story: "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but we met a bunch of celebrities. Vince Vaughn partied with us. Steve Byrne, the comedian. And at some point we decided to take the party back to the village, so we started talking to the security guards, showed off our gold medals, got their attention and snuck our group through without credentials -- which is absolutely unheard of." And, she adds, "I may have snuck a celebrity back to my room without anybody knowing, and snuck him back out. But that's my Olympic secret." The best part, according to Solo? "When we were done partying, we got out of our nice dresses, got back into our stadium coats and, at 7 a.m. with no sleep, went on the Today show drunk. Needless to say, we looked like hell."

And then it's over -- for most Olympians, anyway. For a few and the most committed, the games continue -- all the way home. On a United Airlines flight from Sydney to Los Angeles in 2000, nearly 100 Olympians were among the passengers, causing the flight attendants to begin the flight with a warning: "Ladies and gentlemen, anybody who wishes to sleep, trade seats with someone in the front of the plane. Everybody else to the back with the Olympians." After that, the story gets fuzzy.

"Everybody partnered up fairly rapidly, and when they'd bring a drink cart through, we'd send it back dry," says Lakatos, who met a girl and "comfortably occupied row 50-something for roughly half an hour." Greer ended up in the bathroom with a famous Olympian he will not name. "We're going at it, and then -- boing. I accidentally turn on the assistance light." Happily for them, once Greer assured the flight attendant of their Olympic credentials, they were able to return to their business. "And we stayed in there a long time."

It's tales like these -- of connections made and just as easily ditched -- that have London-bound Olympians dreaming of the possibilities. "My last Olympics, I had a girlfriend -- big mistake," Lochte says. "Now I'm single, so London should be really good. I'm excited." So is American runner LaShawn Merritt, the reigning Olympic gold medalist in the 400 meters. "An Olympics to remember has to have those stories," Merritt says. "But I was too locked in in Beijing. This time, when I'm done leaving my legacy on the track," he says, laughing, "I'll make sure London remembers me."

Taylor Phinney too is looking forward to a do-over in London for two reasons. In Beijing, he was an 18-year-old wunderkind American cyclist who night after night sat on his balcony, one floor below the gymnastics team terrace, and tossed Shawn Johnson prohibited Snickers bars. "She was a superstar," Phinney says of the then-16-year-old, "and I was a lowly cyclist with a massive crush." After Johnson won gold and moved to a hotel with her parents, Phinney moved his courtship to the lobby, where they closed some blinds and had a "kissing session." But Phinney's long trip to first base may have also derailed his medaling hopes. "This is going to sound stupid, but I almost forgot I had to race."

After a Skype relationship forced by their globe-trotting careers, they are now on hiatus. But Phinney can't wait for London, where Johnson, who retired in June, will be on hand to fulfill her sponsorship obligations. "I'll try to hang out with her as much as I can," he says before he doubles back, still clearly flummoxed. "And I'm going to try very hard to stay away from females." In that case, he might want to stay away from the Olympic Village altogether.