Has pin trading at Milano Cortina gone too far?

I am not a collector; this is not my thing. But I knew that ‘rare’ pins – such as a Saudi Arabian one from these Games allegedly made of white gold; classic areas from them – were second only to the free condoms in the athletes’ village as the most sought-after Olympic objects.

I understood that they were some kind of social lubricant, an ice-breaker that brought people and cultures together and opened otherwise closed doors. You attach them to your accreditation lanyard, and that is an unspoken signal that you are part of the club, that you are open to an approach from any like-minded operators. Some athletes have even brought their own self-made pins with them, and declared ahead of the Games on social media that they were open for business. This is how you meet people, I guess. Cute.

What I didn’t know was how the single-minded pursuit of them had warped some people’s behaviour, so much so that it was having the opposite effect: they’re making it weird.

To my horror, the pathetic cobra man was the tip of the iceberg. I began asking Olympians if anything like that had happened to them, and if they shared the view that I was slowly forming about pin-trading having gone too far.

Hoo, boy. Did they ever. The consensus is that at Milano Cortina 2026, people – some fans, officials, volunteers and security – have never been so overbearing.

Guys, you’re scaring the athletes.

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Valentino Guseli told me police were hassling him for pins right before he threw himself off a 50-metre ramp in the big air final. It was a similar deal for fellow Aussie snowboarder Emily Arthur, who got asked while she was in the bathroom, mid-competition. Others told me about how people had camped outside the athletes’ lounge, begging for pins from people who delivered sob stories as if from a script. And they wanted them for free, which is surely against the spirit of all this. It’s pin trading, not pin charity. The exchange is the whole point.

As Australian chef de mission Alisa Camplin walked away from an emotional press conference in which she choked back tears talking about Cameron Bolton’s horrific neck injury, I saw someone who had been watching nearby hit her up for pins.

Read the room, brother. Have you no decorum? Are we no better than the beasts in the field?

There is an official body for these freaks (I say that respectfully) called the International Association of Olympic Collectors, and they have established clear rules of etiquette: be polite and friendly, don’t be rude or aggressive. These guidelines, as far as I was concerned, were being trampled on, and the social harmony of the entire Olympic movement was at stake.

There were yet more layers to peel back. Team Australia media types had told me about how they gave away pins to obtain small-time favours or preferential treatment from volunteers and officials, to gain access to areas of mixed zones they otherwise would not be able to enter. This is, apparently, the way wheels are greased nowadays; a far more acceptable form of Olympic corruption, it must be said.

Having noted my curiosity, they decided to give me a few Australian pins, featuring both ours and the Italian flags and a boxing kangaroo (very cool), so I could step inside the belly of the beast, to facilitate some award-winning gonzo journalism that would make Hunter S. Thompson proud.

Suddenly, I started attracting attention myself.

First, from a cop. I would have traded for a Carabinieri or Polizia pin, but he wanted a freebie. Sorry, agente. Then, another night, as I paid the cover charge to get into a nightclub (for journalistic purposes, obviously), the lady I was paying asked me; I did not have them on me at the time. A restaurateur told me he’d been propositioned literally hundreds of times since the Games started.

Maybe it’s because of my vibe – or maybe it’s because my lanyard was often twisted the wrong way and nobody could actually see them – but folks didn’t seem interested in trading pins with me.

But eventually, I executed my first swap: two Aussie pins for a Team Spain pin and one from FIS, the international ski and snowboard federation. Two-for-one? That’s a clean profit. I felt good.

A couple of days later, I felt even better. Just after Jakara Anthony’s dual moguls gold, I spotted an extraordinary pin worn by a volunteer helping run the mixed zone, featuring the logo of Death Row Records, which could have only come from one source. Sure enough, he confirmed that he’d met Snoop Dogg during his visit to Livigno and swapped with him. I was amazed. This guy, Matteo, had completed pin-trading, as far as I was concerned.

Then he came back to me and asked if I wanted it.

I told him no, keep it, never give that away. What are you, crazy, Matteo?

Turned out he had two, and since I liked it so much, he was happy to do a deal. What a guy. So I gave him two Australian pins and the Spanish one in return – but I would have given him pretty much all of my pins if he wanted them, and possibly some cash, too. I was now, officially, sensationally, only one degree of separation from a true hip-hop legend. What I was wearing now was once in Snoop’s pocket, and may have possibly rubbed against one of his joints.

More importantly, Matteo and I had a wonderful little chat, and I enjoyed a conversation and experience that I otherwise wouldn’t have had. That’s a great memory to look back on, and I will think about it every time I look at my Death Row Records pin. That’s exactly what this game is all about.

But then a couple of things happened that brought me crashing back down to earth.

First, upon my return to the media centre, the cafe cashier took advantage of my post-pin euphoria by pleading for me to give her an Aussie pin, gratis. So I did. I caved. Then my colleague, Billie, told me she’d also given her one. I’d been scammed.

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The very next day, at the entry to the moguls park, I was stopped in my tracks by an abrupt question I haven’t been asked since the last time I owned a Game Boy.

“Do you have Pikachu?” said the man scanning my accreditation. Apparently, there’s a Pikachu pin out there in circulation.

Straight into it, paesano? How about a ‘buongiorno, come stai,’ first?

No, mate, I don’t have Pikachu.

Not to be all Carrie Bradshaw, but I couldn’t help but wonder when we stopped wanting the moment, and started just wanting the souvenir.

It’s not about the pins. It’s supposed to be about the trading. This is just the latest sign of a decaying social order, of how a nice thing can have the fun sucked out of it by people who don’t understand its essence.

All I’m saying is, come Brisbane 2032, be careful. They’ll be coming for you, too.

The Winter Olympic Games is broadcast on the 9Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.