Organisers of the Paris Olympics have decided to bring intimacy back to the Summer Games with the Coronavirus pandemic apparently not posing significant global health risk.
The Olympic Village is slated to welcome about 9,000 athletes for the event, which will be held from July 26 through Aug. 11.
With the number of target participants, organisers said about 300,000 condoms will be provided as athletes will be encouraged to interact with each other socially again after strict rules at the Tokyo Games, according to Sky News.
“It is very important that the conviviality here is something big,” Olympic Village director Laurent Michaud told Sky News.
“Working with the athletes commission, we wanted to create some places where the athletes would feel very enthusiastic and comfortable.
“We will have more than 350 meters (382 yards) of buffet with the world food… and I’m sure that the athletes will be very happy to have some French specialties made over here,” he told Sky News.
He added that the variety will first respond to the athletes’ needs for their nutrition and their performance.
Since the 1988 Seoul Olympics, organisers have distributed condoms to raise awareness of, and protection against the AIDS virus and to protect people’s health as a fundamental right.
“Working with the athletes’ commission, we wanted to create some places where the athletes would feel very enthusiastic and comfortable,” said Michaud.
Michaud stressed that while intimacy is once again allowed at the Olympic Games, alcohol will not be allowed in the Olympic Village, although no one can ban it outside the official gastronomic venue.
Although the number is just over 20 condoms per Olympic Village resident, it is far from the record set at Rio 2016, where the IOC distributed nearly 450,000 condoms, 100,000 female condoms and 175,000 bottles of lubricant.
That was an average of almost 40 condoms per athlete or delegation member, almost double the figure for Paris 2024 holding between 26 July and 11 August.
