From phones to porn-blocking outfits: Olympic athletes given high-tech swag for Paris 2024

Olympic athletes have been taking to social media to reveal the high-tech swag they have been given for the Paris Olympics.

Every athlete received a new Olympic-themed Samsung flip phone, the normal version of which is retailing online for £1,049.

One Team GB athlete, however, has taken full advantage of the freebie.

At the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, athletes were also given a free phone, which rower Imogen Grant used “every day” until now, even as it started to break.

In a video posted to her TikTok, she said: “I’ve been desperately, desperately, desperately trying to get [the Tokyo phone] to last, because I was crossing my fingers and…”

Luckily for Grant, this year’s goodie bags did indeed come with a phone.

The devices also play an unprecedented role in the Olympic medal ceremonies. After receiving their medals, athletes on the podium are handed one of the phones to take a victory selfie.

The selfies are supposed to help athletes “create and share new, more personal memories of the celebration atop the podium”, according to Samsung.

The goodie bags also contained toiletries, water bottles and gift cards but there’s plenty more high-tech swag being shown off online from Paris.

Space swimsuits

For the swimming teams, more high-tech gear is on show.

The Australian team are among those competing in swimsuits coated in a material used in space.

The high-tech swimsuits made by Speedo are coated in a material that was originally developed to protect satellites in orbit. It makes the suits water repellent, which helps the athletes go faster.

The suits, however, are made to be incredibly tight, as shown by Australia’s water polo team when they tried to stretch out their suits in an Instagram video.

At one point, the athletes even hold onto the shoulders of their teammates’ swimsuits and bounce them up and down.

Anti-infrared kit

The dark side of the internet has also led to some very high-tech gear for Japan’s athletes.

In the 2020 games, the country’s female athletes complained that explicit images of them competing were circulating on the internet after voyeurs had taken photos of them using infrared cameras.

Those cameras reveal the lines of a person’s body or their undergarments. Local press in Japan say explicit infrared photography is a growing problem for female athletes in the country.

In response, athletes in Japan’s volleyball, table tennis, track and field and others are now competing in a new fabric that absorbs infrared light.

The technology works in a similar way to stealth aircraft, which absorb and deflect radar signals.