Marchand fever, Kanye spoofs and Muffin Man — How Tiktok won the Olympics

Chinese-owned app Tiktok has been among the biggest winners at the Olympics

Swimming Gold Medalist Léon Marchand of Team France poses for a photo (Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

In the Olympic Village in Seine-Saint-Denis, athletes wander around in their team colours, their long, lean limbs striding out along the banks of the Seine. A pair of Hungarian Olympians in matching sports gear canoodle on a giant beanbag, a Dutch marathon runner talks patiently to a journalist, and impossibly perfect young women from the Greek water polo team make their way towards the onsite supermarket.

It is a hermetically sealed enclave with heavily guarded entry points, which has traditionally been off-limits to all but these Olympic demi-gods. What happened in the village stayed in the village. That is, at least, until TikTok came along.