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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Alexandra Topping in Paris

The TikTok Games: from cardboard beds and Kanye spoofs to Muffin Man

Simone Biles competes at the 2024 Paris Olympics
The ‘rock star’ gymnast Simone Biles has 4.9 million followers on TikTok. Photograph: Naomi Baker/Getty Images

In the Olympic Village in Seine-Saint-Denis, athletes wander around in their team colours, their long, lean limbs striding out along the banks of the Seine. A pair of Hungarian Olympians in matching sports gear canoodle on a giant beanbag, a Dutch marathon runner talks patiently to a journalist, and impossibly perfect young women from the Greek water polo team make their way towards the onsite supermarket.

It is a hermetically sealed enclave with heavily guarded entry points, which has traditionally been off-limits to all but these Olympic demi-gods. What happened in the village stayed in the village. That is, at least, until TikTok came along.

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