Credit: Twitter/Nico Hines, Getty

A straight, married journalist who fooled gay athletes into arranging dates with him using hookup apps such as Grindr has been sent home from the Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee said on Sunday that they understood that Nico Hines had been recalled by the Daily Beast in the wake of the article.

The IOC described the article – which potentially outed gay athletes, some from countries with repressive regimes – as ‘simply unacceptable’.

The article – ‘The other Olympic sport in Rio: Swiping’ was removed from the site last week, amid concerns it could have outed gay athletes at the Rio Games.


The story talked about how athletes use dating apps such as Bumble, Grindr, Jack’d, and Tinder to connect with people at the games.

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A reporter for the site said in the story that he got three dates in his first hour of trying and also detailed what some men wrote on their profiles on Grindr, a popular gay dating app.



Readers and social media users quickly voiced concern that the details in the original version of the story could not only out gay athletes, but also potentially threaten their safety.

In a full statement, the Daily Beast said: ‘Today, The Daily Beast took an unprecedented but necessary step: We are removing an article from our site, “The Other Olympic Sport In Rio: Swiping.”

Fabric nightclub in London closed ‘indefinitely’ after drug deaths’The Daily Beast does not do this lightly. As shared in our editor’s note earlier today, we initially thought swift removal of any identifying characteristics and better clarification of our intent was the adequate way to address this. Our initial reaction was that the entire removal of the piece was not necessary. We were wrong. We’re sorry. And we apologize to the athletes who may have been inadvertently compromised by our story.

‘Today we did not uphold a deep set of The Daily Beast’s values. These values -which include standing up to bullies and bigots, and specifically being a proudly, steadfastly supportive voice for LGBT people all over the world – are core to our commitment to journalism and to our commitment to serving our readers.

Turns out Olympic gold medals AREN’T actually made of gold’As a newsroom, we succeed together and we fail together, and this was a failure on The Daily Beast as a whole, not a single individual. The article was not intended to do harm or degrade members of the LGBT community, but intent doesn’t matter, impact does. Our hope is that removing an article that is in conflict with both our values and what we aspire to as journalists will demonstrate how seriously we take our error.

‘We were wrong. We will do better.’