The Winter Olympic Village in Italy has reportedly run out of condoms just three days after the start of the Games, after Athletes use up 10,000 protection.
“The supplies ran out in just three days,” an anonymous athlete told the Italian newspaper, La Stampa. “They promised us more will arrive, but who knows when.”
Organizers typically distribute thousands of free condoms to athletes staying in the Olympic Village as part of a long-standing public health initiative aimed at promoting safe sex during the Games. However, this year’s supply was quickly depleted within 72 hours, according to reports circulating from inside the Village.
The anonymous athlete blamed the Olympic organisers, saying they had not been “particularly generous with the numbers”. “In Paris the athletes received 300,000 condoms – two per day each – but the numbers for these Winter Games were significantly lower: not even 10,000,” La Stampa’s report states.
Last week the governor of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, insisted the topic should not be a cause of embarrassment. “Yes, we provide free condoms to athletes in the Olympic village,” he said in a social media post. “If this seems strange to some, they’re unaware of the established Olympic practice. It began in Seoul 1988 to raise awareness among athletes and young people about sexually transmitted disease prevention— a topic that shouldn’t cause embarrassment.”
Fontana also shared an Instagram post by the Spanish figure skater Olivia Smart, in which she showed her followers condoms stamped with the yellow Lombardy Region logo. “I found them,” she says in the clip, which has gone viral. “They have everything you need.”
This year’s Winter Olympics has around 2,900 athletes from 92 different national committees participating in 116 different events across 16 disciplines. These 2026 games do have the highest percentage of female athletes (47%) in Winter Games history
