Cos - let's be honest...you put thousands of the planet's elite, fittest, healthiest young men and women all in one place, from all over the globe, and they've done no normal fun stuff that most people their age do..nothing but work their asses off for a brief moment at these Games..and then...
Well I reckon you can guess. Mix in a little bit of alcohol..
What's notable ten-odd years from when I wrote this, is the evolution of communication apps (i.e. Tinder)...it doesn't bear thinking the insane thrashing Tindr has/will have be getting at these places...
LET THE FUN BEGIN
With both the winter Olympics and the Commonwealth Games happening during the first quarter of 2006, we in Rogues Corner have begun nodding at each other with knowing, wry smiles.
“Why?” you may ask. Well, at both these events, and the summer Olympics, the participants all live together in the athletes’ Village which emerges like a utopian
mirage for the duration of said Games.
The Village houses thousands of elite athletes who embody the absolute physical potential of the human race. Each finely toned individual is the result of not only phenomenal genetics but a lifetime spent training relentlessly to peak during – you guessed it
– the Games.
This sounds pretty good to us but, sadly, it’s a very exclusive club. Only coaches, trainers and competitors are allowed in.
Nelson Diebel, a double gold medallist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, described it as “a two-week-long private party for thousands of hard-bodies”. It has also been described as “an adult Disney World”.
Further spiking this potent social cocktail is the dynamic which inevitably develops at Villages – that between the serious Olympians (there to compete for medals) and the “Olympic tourists” (the vast majority of athletes who have no realistic medal chance and
are there just to make up the numbers).
Stunning American high jumper Amy Acuff told Playboy magazine: “One of the big misconceptions is that every athlete is 100 per cent serious about being there. A
number of athletes in the Village – people who know they don’t have a chance – are there to have a party.”
American shot put medallist John Godina reveals: “Athletes who are knocked out early have basically a two-week, all-expenses-paid vacation with nothing to do, and that’s when things happen.”
So, what exactly does happen when you put up to 15,000 of the most physically perfect human specimens in one place at the same time, with their glycogen levels skyrocketing and energy practically bursting out of their skin?
Sex. Lots and lots of it, that’s what.
American javelin thrower Breaux Greer, who competed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, says:
“There’s a lot of sex going on. You get a lot of people who are in shape and, you know, testosterone’s up and everybody’s attracted to everybody.”
Condom machines had to be refilled every two hours at the 1990 Albertville winter Games in France.
Seventy thousand condoms were allocated to the Sydney Olympic Village and went so quickly that another 20,000 were shipped in. Even then they’d run out three days before the end of the Games. This number ballooned to 130,000 for the 2004 Athens
Olympics. You get the picture.
Modern technology has made getting together even easier. All athletes have access to free internet connections in Villages. Alpine ski racer Marco Buechel revealed that during the 2002 Salt Lake City winter Olympics “everybody used it” and, despite not being able to speak a word of Greek, he arranged via email to meet a gorgeous Greek skier. “We tried to talk, which wasn’t very successful.”
But this small linguistic hiccup failed to thwart their chemistry. “It was very beautiful ... a beautiful international incident.”
After many failed leads, Rogues Corner managed to find a great Kiwi athlete willing to spill all. He has not only represented New Zealand at both Commonwealth and Olympic level, but (after a few beers) told such outrageous stories that we had no option but to cloak him in total anonymity.
“If you don’t get laid at least three times while you’re there, you must be a complete munter,” our still-buff stool pigeon claimed.
He revealed that he bedded a lithe Australian gold medallist from his sporting discipline.
“The medallists did even better. Two or three different partners per night was quite possible for them and some of them took advantage.”
Luckily for our man, his discipline typically finished early-ish during the Games, leaving him and his mates plenty of time to get stuck in.
As it is with us mortals, alcohol is the athletes’ social lubricant. Years of alcohol deprivation come crashing to a halt as virtually all athletes let loose.
The drink gets drunk either at venues outside or is smuggled into the Villages (booze is officially banned inside).
Our Kiwi Rogue and his room-mate took turns “rotating” – letting one another have their room to themselves – and this generous privacy policy helped no end for New Zealand’s finest. These guys would often head out of the Village to local nightspots and would mingle with other athletes – different nationalities but typically from the same sporting discipline – and the fireworks would begin.
There is a slim window of opportunity for the rest of us. Some crafty characters worm their way into the Villages under the guise of being “Village volunteers”, performing rudimentary duties such as showing athletes where to go.
Our chap assured us that many of the volunteers were quite sexy, too, and plenty of athlete/volunteer carry-on went on.
But like everything that sounds too good to be true there is a downside to being in a Games Village and it was summed up ever so eloquently by Diebel:
“The only thing you’re deprived of is fat. If you’re the rare athlete who likes sedentary bodies, you’re out of luck.”
Games Villagers, Rogues Corner salutes you!
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