Top 10 Weirdest Things To Happen In The Olympic Village

Capitalizing on the many failures of the Sochi Winter Olympics, Jimmy Kimmel decided to terrify the American public by tricking them into thinking that Team USA athletes were at risk of being eaten by wild, Siberian wolves. He did this by roping in Kate Hansen, a luger, and having her film a trained wolfdog roam through some hallways and then post the footage on twitter. It’s definitely an unusual stunt to pull, which didn’t only freak out Americans watching at home, but everybody else staying in the Olympic Village who just wanted to win a medal without getting attacked by a wolf.

For whatever reason, it took a while after the birth of the modern Olympics for the organizers to realize that they actually needed to put foreign athletes up somewhere. But it took even longer for them to work out that they should put them up somewhere nice. Modern Olympic accommodations still aren’t luxurious, but they’re a far cry from Paris’s Olympic Village back in 1924, which was described as being a “shantytown”. The provided buildings were little more than shacks near to the stadium and staying there wasn’t even free for the Olympians; it cost 30 francs per day. It’s strange that these athletes were expected to live in huts and then compete for Olympic medals.

In true Aussie style, the Sydney Olympics in 2000 went out with a bang. But this wasn’t the official closing ceremony, it was a party organized in the Village by the athletes themselves. According to some athletes who were present at the time, including Australian soccer player Alicia Ferguson, they started gathering the Village’s own furniture to burn it in an extraordinary bonfire. Luckily for them, this was before the age of social media; if that happened today, they wouldn’t be able to keep it such a secret and would probably get in big trouble with the organizers for having such a wild party.

Russia is famous for having a large number of stray dogs; in fact, in 2010 it was found that strays in Moscow have learned how to use the Metro system. But a horrific decision to euthanize as many stray dogs as possible in the build-up to Sochi’s Winter Olympics led to some terrible press for Russia in 2014. Large campaigns were set up to encourage people to adopt some of the street dogs, and some Olympians actually did do this while they were there. Unfortunately, this didn’t really help Russia’s overall problem with strays; in the lead-up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the exact same thing happened once again.

The Olympic Games has enormous sponsorship deals; it only happens every few years and when it does, it’s one of the most-watched events in the world. So it’s not surprising that McDonald’s, the world’s biggest fast-food chain, featured prominently at the event until pulling out in 2017. But it was still a major force in Rio in 2016, when a McDonald’s restaurant was built inside the Olympic Village and became extremely busy. It turns out that although Olympians are sports personalities in peak physical condition, even they can’t pass up a Big Mac. However, this particular McDonald’s was so wildly popular that wait times were typically thirty minutes; Rio really took the “fast” out of “fast food”.

Though soccer isn’t as popular in the US as it is in the rest of the world, that doesn’t stop America’s soccer players from having a great time at the Olympics. But it seems that you can have too much of a good time, as goalkeeper Hope Solo revealed in an interview with ESPN. Solo told a wild story about the women’s soccer team going out partying one night with celebrities in Beijing in 2008. They stayed out so late that they had to appear on a live interview with no sleep the following day. One of them even says they’re playing at the World Cup rather than in the Olympics.

An immense scandal struck the Brazilian Synchronized Diving Team back in 2016, one that led the two divers to swear they’d never compete together again. That scandal was that one of the divers, Ingrid Oliveira, kicked her roommate and fellow diver Giovanna Pedrosa out of the bedroom the day before the competition. Why did she do that? Because she wanted some “alone time” with fellow Olympian Pedro Goncalves. The next day, the divers finished last during the competition. However, Oliveira herself has a different story, claiming that she didn’t kick out Pedrosa and it wasn’t the night before the dive. Whatever the truth, it led to the pair breaking up for good.

Competing in the Olympics is undoubtedly a highlight of most athletes’ careers. But it’s also extremely stressful to have the eyes of the world on you while you try to win gold for your country. So, it’s not surprising to hear that Olympians have found some rather creative ways to unwind over the years. One of those was Josh Lakatos, a shooting champion from Team USA, back at Sydney in 2000. Lakatos broke into an abandoned house in the Village after his events were finished and the place became a party pad for Olympians craving a little privacy. It was a nest of debauchery right under the nose of the Olympic Committee, and he only came clean a decade later.

The Winter Olympics is traditionally not as popular as the Summer Games, but that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable for host countries to skimp on the event. If you thought Paris in 1924 looked bad, wait until you hear more details on Sochi – the same event where they tried to get rid of all the dogs. One of Sochi’s most infamous moments was the double toilet stalls, where organizers didn’t bother installing a divider between two toilets. There were also signs advising athletes not to go fishing in the toilets, and plenty of events that were made more dangerous by courses being poorly designed. The food was inedible, the décor was ugly, and some of the buildings weren’t even finished.

It’s been the Olympics’ worst-kept secret for years now, but the athletes are notorious for getting down and dirty while the games are ongoing. This is to the point where organizers order hundreds of thousands of condoms each year just to be sure that their athletes are being as safe as possible. When you put that many world-class athletes in one place for weeks on end, things are going to happen, and at least the Olympic organizers know this and plan accordingly rather than trying to stop nature from taking its course. But the numbers will still blow your mind; there were 450,000 condoms distributed at Rio, which averages to 42 per person.