Athletes from around the world competing at the 2026 Winter Olympics are certainly getting busy — in their pursuit of and apparently away from the podium.
“The supplies ran out in just three days,” an anonymous athlete competing at the Games told the Italian newspaper La Stampa on Friday, February 13. “They promised us more will arrive, but who knows when.”
The athlete went on to blame the 2026 Winter Olympics organizers for the shortage, telling the outlet that when it came to birth control methods and safe-sex practices, those responsible for putting on the Games were not “particularly generous with the numbers.”
According to the Italian outlet, “In Paris, the athletes received 300,000 condoms — two per day each — but the numbers for these Winter Games were significantly lower: not even 10,000.”
Earlier this month, Canadian and Spanish ice dancer Olivia Smart gave fans an inside look into Olympic Village, including where to find the free condoms offered to the athletes.
“So, for anybody wondering about the Olympic condoms, I found them,” Smart, a two-time Winter Olympian, shared via a video uploaded to TikTok at the time. “You can find them in the space where the air weave beds are and you can rent appliances — I rented a hair dryer because mine blew up.”
Smart continued, “Eh, you can take tampons. They have everything — everything you need — at the Olympic Village.”
In the video, the ice dancer could be seen shopping around the Olympic Village in Milan, Italy, when she panned to two plastic bins holding the Milan Winter Olympics branded condoms. (From the looks of the video, the bins have been sufficiently raided.)
“Yes, there are OLYMPIC condoms,” Smart captioned the video.
Attilio Fontana, the president of the Lombardy region in Italy, addressed the condoms via social media, confirming birth control is available for the athletes should they want or need it.
“Yes, we provide free condoms to athletes in the Olympic village,” he wrote. “If this seems strange to some, they’re unaware of the established Olympic practice. It began in Seoul 1988 to raise awareness among athletes and young people about sexually transmitted disease prevention — a topic that shouldn’t cause embarrassment.”
Olympic-branded condoms were all the rage in Paris during the 2024 Summer Olympics. Laurent Dalard, the individual who coordinated first aid and health services for the Games, told Olympics.com that the organization “provided enough prophylactics to cover 10,500 athletes staying at the Olympic Village and those staying further afield.”
According to Dallard, over 200,000 male condoms, 20,000 female condoms and 10,000 oral dams were made available for the athletes during the 2024 Paris Games, adding that “safe sex is paramount in a notoriously febrile environment, akin to students at college, but sweatier.”
Athletes were also subjected to so-called “anti-sex beds” at both the 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Olympic Games — though plenty of athletes have since sufficiently debunked the myth that the cardboard beds were created specifically to deter athletes from getting busy between the sheets.
