Dating app heating up Pyeongchang

 Pyeongchang:  The most popular athletes on Tinder at the Olympics here are male bobsledders and female snowboarders, the dating app said on Wednesday.  Tinder, the dating app owned by Match Group Inc, has seen major spikes in usage at the Olympics since it caught on during the last Winter Games in Sochi in 2014.

On Tinder, a swipe right signals interest in a prospective partner, as opposed to a left swipe, which passes over a person. Behind bobsled, the most right swiped male athletes on the app were ice hockey players, followed by snowboarders, alpine skiers and skeleton racers.

After snowboarding, the most right swiped female athletes were alpine skiers, bobsledders, lugers and freestyle skiers. Tinder said it has seen a 348 per cent increase in usage at Pyeongchang, compared to the usage of the app in the area before the Olympics began.

South Korea is not one of Tinder's top 10 markets so it could also make some headway in the country during the Olympics."Every Olympics we hear that Tinder is 'on fire' in the villages and we notice our usage increase significantly when people from around the world gather for an event," a spokeswoman said.