Gold Medal Matches or Dating Disqualification? Inside the Olympic Village's romantic scene

Thanks to the age of social media, we've witnessed lots of happenings inside the Paris Olympics village - the home of the athletes for the 2024 tournament.

We've seen cardboard box beds, Team Fiji starting the day by serenading everybody with a native song, British silver medallist Adam Peaty finding worms in his food, Italian swimmer Thomas Ceccon sleeping in a park because the rooms have no air conditioning and don't even get us started on Henrik Christiansen who now goes by the name, 'Muffin Man.'

You may also like

• Paris Olympics: Best dressed guests from Zendaya to Ariana Grande

• Olympics 2024: The chicest 'Team Uniforms' heading to Paris

It also appears that unfortunately for the athletes looking for gold-standard love, the dating scene in the village isn't quite living up to expectations either.

The singleton stars seemed to have had high expectations for finding love at this year's games. After being urged during 2020's Covid-hit Olympics to "avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact," this year Laurent Dalard, who is in charge of first aid and health services at Paris 2024, said that 200,000 condoms for men and 20,000 for women would be available inside this year's village - the most reported at any Olympics in history. And with only around 14,500 athletes actually competing, staff must have been predicting some more-than-regular rendezvous...

But from what we've heard first-hand from participants, it appears that the money spent on contraception would have been more worthwhile on solid beds and fine French food, as reports suggest those attending the games single, would be leaving with the same relationship status.

Last week, Team USA rower Emily Delleman took to TikTok to spill the tea about the dating competition inside the village (which we can only imagine is like moving to your university halls and attempting to scout out single talent via dating apps). Explaining her experience on using Tinder, the 26-year-old Olympian said:  “So I was laying in my cardboard bed the other day recovering… and I was scrolling through TikTok and I was seeing the girlies saying, ‘Hey change your location to the Olympic Village. Like, do you want babies?’

“And I was like ‘Oh my gosh, genius. I mean, I am here right now, so you have to take full advantage of this, like when in Rome.”

“I haven’t had this app downloaded in years, so I go to the app store and they’re hyping it up,” she said.

“They’re like, ‘Match with pro athletes using our new feature,’ and I was like, ‘Crazy, okay.’ But this must be good. The nostalgia was starting to hit. The expectations were rising.

“… So I start scrolling and scrolling and I’m not seeing any Olympians.

“I was like, ‘Okay, my settings must be weird.’ No. I’m like, location, one-mile radius and so far I think I’ve seen a total of two other Olympians.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, you Parisian men are beautiful, chefs kiss like I don’t know what they put in the water. But, you know, I went in with the expectations of finding some of my future plot lines, but alas, I guess we’re searching for other forms of entertainment and that’s now why you’re finding me on TikTok.”

Despite this, influencer Sofia Elizabeth gave us a glimmer of dating hope three days later, as she explained on TikTok she matched and hit it off with 23-year-old American swimmer Hunter Armstrong on Hinge, who won Team USA's first gold medal of the tournament. Yes, we are also patiently waiting for a part two...

In July, Tinder said there had been an almost 20 per cent increase in swipes in France, and a 103 per cent increase in Passport Mode (a paid feature to change your location) to sites like Paris, according to Mashable. The app also reported an increase in the number of users with their job description set as "Olympian" (52 per cent) and as "athlete" (43 per cent).

Though it seems all is not lost City of Love, the conclusion suggests not spending your hard-earned money on flights to Paris.