Dating app Grindr is helping to make sure Olympians safely enjoy their time at the 2026 Games away from competition, too.
Grindr, which specializes in location-based dating for the LGBTQ+ community, has addressed “serious safety and privacy concerns, especially for those who are not out or come from countries where being gay is dangerous or illegal” at the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina.
The app has disabled its explore and roam features within the boundaries of the Olympic Villages, which prevents anybody outside the area from seeing or messaging anybody on the inside.
Grindr has also turned off its approximate distance displays, which allows users to see precisely how far a potential match might be away, down to the number of feet. Users are able to re-activate this feature if they choose to.
What Athletes Have Said About Hooking Up in the Olympic Village Through the Years
The app is providing “unlimited disappearing messages and the ability to unsend messages to both free and premium subscribers” to those in the Village.
Grindr has also disabled third-party ads, only publishing Grindr for Equality messages.
Throughout the duration of the 2026 Winter Olympics, Grindr will send users “weekly reminders about risks specific to the Olympic environment, links to our multilingual safety and privacy guides and in-person and in-app safety resources from the International Olympic Committee.”
“To the trailblazing athletes heading to Italy: we’re proud to support you and we can’t wait to see you shine,” Grindr said in a press release this week.
Sex in the Olympic Village has been a hot topic for decades, with the “anti-sex” beds at the 2024 Summer Olympics going viral.
The beds weren’t necessarily an effective deterrent for everybody, as Team USA fencer Miles Chamley-Watson exclusively told Us Weekly.
“Listen, if you wanna get it done, you gonna get it done,” Chamley-Watson, 36, said from the Village in July 2024. “To each his own.”
Former Team USA women’s soccer goalie Hope Solo got candid with ESPN about escapades at the Olympics, saying, “If you don’t have discipline, the village can be a huge distraction.”
“With a once-in-a-lifetime experience, you want to build memories, whether it’s sexual, partying or on the field,” Solo, 44, said in 2012. “I’ve seen people having sex right out in the open. On the grass, between buildings, people are getting down and dirty.”
She added, “I may have snuck a celebrity back to my room without anybody knowing, and snuck him back out. But that’s my Olympic secret.”
Behind-the-Scenes on Team USA’s Dramatic Journey to the 2026 Winter Olympics
Team Great Britain soccer player Micah Richards recalled “a massive room full of condoms” at the 2012 London Summer Olympics.
“It was like ‘What!?’ Obviously promoting safe sex and, honest to God, I was on fire,” Richards, 37, told Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer on “The Rest is Football” podcast.
“I was on absolute fire, honestly. I was a little slimmer, a bit more ripped, bit more lean, it was summertime, walking around with my top off. One of the best times of my life, it was incredible.”
Team USA swimmer Ryan Lochte estimated that 70 to 75 percent of athletes are having sex in the Village, telling ESPN in 2012 that having a girlfriend during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing was “a big mistake.”
