ATHLETES ARRIVING IN LONDON FOR THE OLYMPIC GAMES HAVE BEEN BLAMED FOR A 24-HOUR OUTAGE OF GAY SOCIAL APP GRINDR.

UK TABLOID PEOPLE QUOTED A 'TECHNICAL EXPERT' WHO CLAIMED, "IT HAPPENED ALMOST AS SOON AS THE TEAMS GOT HERE. EITHER LOADS OF ATHLETES WERE LOGGING ON TO MEET FELLOW OLYMPIANS OR THEY 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."

Openly gay Australian diver Matthew Mitcham denied crashing the app when asked about it by fans on Twitter.

"Wish I could take the credit but I don't have it :P," he tweeted.

Grindr addressed the July 22 outage in a statement and sadly poo-pooed the rumour. "While we’d love to believe that the best-built men in the world all dressed up in Lycra and congregating in one place can generate a huge increase in Grindr traffic, we can say with confidence that the arrival of the Olympic teams had little or no effect on our server,” the company said. But hey, why let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Even without the extra traffic from the Olympics, London boasts the most Grindr users with over 350,000 locals using the app. In the top 10, Sydney ranks fourth and Melbourne ranks sixth in numbers of Grindr users worldwide.