Olympic athletes are beating strict Covid rules to find romance in Beijing.
Competitors from around the world are using their photo IDs to seek out a sporting soulmate.
Team GB has given blue or white uniforms to their 50 competitors for alternate days at the Games.
They have one single red uniform in their kit bag for the 18-day Olympiad - to wear on Valentine’s Day. Restaurants, cafes and snack bars in the Olympic village and mountain accommodation have plastic anti-Covid screens at tables.
They make it difficult to have a conversation - and find a date. So any of the 3,000 Olympians looking for love are holding up their ID badges to the screens if they fancy a fellow athlete.
They turn them around to show their name badge and nationalities if they get the chance of a date. “It’s like an Olympic version of Tinder,” said a village insider.
“If romance is in the air, they get their accreditation badges and place them up against the perspex. If they want to take it further, they turn it around to show their names and personal details.....and the other athlete follows suit.”
They can then get in touch via social media, or exchange mobile numbers. There is a strict ban on mixing in the Olympic village as athletes keep to team ‘bubbles’.
But Olympic lovebirds can still hook up at the various venues, with many travelling to events to support each other.
Team GB’s world champion snowboarder Charlotte Bankes was cheered on by her teammates. And there was a big crowd of American athletes there to support their fellow countrymen and women.
At the 2018 Games, in Pyeongchang, South Korea, some British competitors were using the Tinder App to find a date.
“This has replaced the conventional Apps because of the restrictions on movement,” added the source.
Team GB speed skaters Cornelius Kersten and Ellia Smeding have already found love as a couple.
The pair will compete in their respective women’s and men’s events in the 1000m and 1500m.
Organisers are handing out free condoms at the Games to the 60,000 athletes, officials and support staff - despite the social distancing guidelines. They come in ‘king size’ and ‘zero fresh’ varieties.
They are individually packed in coloured envelopes decorated with an image of a Chinese lantern.
Games personnel and athletes are instructed to minimise physical interactions such as hugs, high-fives and handshakes and to maintain a social distance of at least two metres from fellow competitors.
They kept up the tradition of handing out condoms despite the “closed-loop” in which the Games will take place. Large numbers of condoms have been given out at the Games since Seoul’s 1988 Games to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS.
