‘We were bored’: British Olympian’s sex confession about Sydney 2000 Games

Olympian Denise Lewis has admitted she and other athletes would listen through the walls to their counterparts who were getting lucky.

Spoiler: Not everyone is, in fact, having sex at the Olympic Village.

But they might be listening.

British Olympian Denise Lewis admitted not only was she “bored” during down time at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, but that she and other athletes would listen through the wall to their counterparts who were getting lucky.

“I do recall one occasion where there was someone literally ‘at it,’ and I got a phone call,” Lewis confessed on A League of Their Own, the British game show previously hosted by James Corden.

“Well, we were bored. Bored.”

She wouldn’t confess who was getting it on or who called her, but did share that she and some Great Britain teammates rushed over to the room and cupped their ears to the wall for some casual voyeurism.

Winning a gold medal for Great Britain in the heptathlon might’ve kept Lewis too busy to get busy.

Great Britain's Denise Lewis celebrates winning gold in the women's heptathlon at the Sydney Games. Photo by John Giles – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

Sex among the world’s best athletes at the top stage is nothing new, though.

The 2000 Games are notorious for almost running out of condoms. Organisers ordered 70,000 but that wasn’t enough, and 20,000 more were rushed in.

Condoms first publicly came on the scene at the Olympics in 1988 when athletes in Seoul were given a total of 8500 in an effort to reduce the spread of HIV.

Four years later at the Winter Olympics in Albertville, that number more than quadrupled with each athlete receiving three free condoms. But later that same year at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the number again tripled with 90,000 condoms ordered.

In the years following, the number has generally hovered around 100,000 despite a low of 15,000 available in Atlanta in 1996. But 20 years later, the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio offered 450,000 condoms (enough for 42 per athlete). That year, female condoms were available for the first time, as well as 175,000 packets of lube.

Denise Lewis was too busy winning gold in Sydney. Photo by Jon Buckle/EMPICS via Getty Images

Earlier this year, organisers for the 2020 Tokyo Games handed out 160,000 condoms but asked athletes to save them until after they left and even encouraged keeping them as souvenirs. Athletes were under strict Covid regulations and rumours even spread that they were given cardboard beds that would break if occupied by more than one person.

The beds were made of cardboard, but that was part of a previously announced sustainability. And athletes made sure to prove that their beds were capable of just about anything.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission