Tags

Thousands of Closeted Athletes and Olympic Staffers Cause Global Grindr Crash

Posted by on Jul 23, 2012 in Sports | 8 comments

London, already Grindr’s most active city with 350,000 users, brought the hookup app to a grinding halt this weekend as thousands of athletes and support staff arrived for the Olympics and promptly checked who was nearby.

According to The People newspaper, ‘technical experts’ said the Grindr outage was caused by athletes and others trying to logon to the service all at the same time. Grindr works by displaying the 100 guys closest to you based on GPS data. The proximity of athletes in the Olympic village means that they are very close to one another.

One user told the newspaper: “It happened almost as soon as the teams got here. Either loads of athletes were logging on to meet fellow Olympians or were looking to bag a local.

“The Grindr system obviously couldn’t cope. It took 24 hours for the app to get back up and running, much to the relief of all concerned.”

It’s worth noting that there are only 14 openly gay Olympic athletes in the world competing at this year’s games. Grindr’s analytics suggest that there are thousands upon thousands of closeted athletes seeking not just gold, but also men.

(via Pink News)