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It has almost become as much a part of the this year’s Olympics medal ceremony as the anthems and the medals themselves: athletes reach out with a champagne-coloured cuboid, turn it towards themselves, and click.
The selfies that emerge are already some of the more momentous parts of the games, as when the North and South Korean athletes took a selfie together on the podium, in what could be a significant and potentially controversial photograph for tensions between the two countries.
The device used to take them looks like a polaroid camera, or a very square piece of stone. But it is in fact a phone.
Specifically, it is Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 6, a folding phone that is bent in half when it it is usually seen, giving it the unusual and distinctive square look that can be seen in the hands of athletes as they take their selfies. And it is in the athletes hands because of a valuable partnership between Samsung and the International Olympic Committee.
The partnership has seen Samsung give one of the phones to every one of the 17,000 athletes competing at the games. They were included in a goodie bag that was handed out to athletes as they arrived.
The Z Flip 6 is one of Samsung’s many folding phones, which include a hinge in their display so that they can be bent back on themselves. Samsung has specifically pushed the device as being useful for selfies, since users don’t have to fold it out to take a picture and still get a real-time preview.
The athletes’ versions are customised, with that champagne colour and a design of the olympic rings on the back. When it announced the giveaway, at the start of the games, it said that it comes with an eSIM with100GB of 5G data, a free public transport card, and is pre-loaded with official Olympics apps.
But the rest of the world can still buy the phone. It was introduced at the beginning of July – along with a range of other devices including the new Samsung Ring – and has been widely reviewed since.
Samsung said that it had to work with the International Olympics Committee to ensure that all of the phones were ready to be given out at the Olympic village on time. The two had worked “more closely than ever” to build a “special and more secure transport program” to get the phones to the games.
Samsung said that the extra awareness the phones had received had been “incredible”, and claimed that more people were considering foldable phones as a result.
“Samsung has a longstanding partnership with the Olympics and Paralympic Games, and we’re proud to be able to bring our technology to the masses throughout the duration of the event. We’ve deployed nearly 17,000 devices and put them directly in the hands of athletes, enhancing their Olympic experience with the special edition Galaxy Z Flip6,” James Kitto, vice president and head of mobile at Samsung UK and Ireland, told The Independent.
“With the unique foldable form-factor these devices are built for selfies, so there’s an authentic role here to capture those winning moments, and it’s been a privilege to see these devices in the heart of the action.”
Other Samsung phones – the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which does not fold and was released at the start of the year – were attached to the boats that carried athletes down the River Seine for the opening ceremony. In all, more than 200 of the phones were attached to the 85 boats, Samsung said, allowing the wet conditions of the ceremony to be captured close up.
The phones are part of a much broader partnership between Samsung and the IOC. It is not clear how much the company paid for the deal, but Samsung is listed – along with other companies such as Intel – as part of the “The Olympic Partner” or TOP programme, which the IOC says is the “the highest level of Olympic sponsorship” and comes with exclusive global marketing rights.
The partnership does not mean that all Olympians have been spotted using the phones. US Gymnast Simone Biles was spotted in training last week – before the Olympics began – apparently taking selfies using an iPhone.
Likewise, celebrities attending the games do not need to use the phones. A photo of Ariana Grande seemingly recording a voice message on her iPhone – seemingly a pink, base iPhone model – went viral after she was spotted spectating at the Olympics.
