Olympic Athletes to Receive 160K Condoms. There's One Problem

Games organizers forbid sex in Olympic Village amid pandemic, tell athletes to bring condoms home
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 18, 2021 11:47 AM CDT
IOC to Athletes: We're Giving You 160K Condoms, but Don't Use Them
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/LemonTreeImages)

If Olympic athletes preparing to descend on Tokyo for the delayed 2020 Games were thinking of getting some side action while they're there (i.e., having sex), they'll have to rethink those plans. Per the Guardian, the International Olympic Committee has laid down the law for those staying in the Olympic Village, where social distancing protocols will still be in place—meaning athletes must "avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact," including sexual activity, according to the most current version of Olympic rules. Those who do try to become a little more intimate could be fined, disqualified from the games, or even sent home. Not only has this thrown cold water on more libidinous competitors, but it's also presented a new problem: What are athletes supposed to do with the 160,000 condoms set to be handed out, part of a 30-year-plus tradition promoting safe sex?

The 15,000 or so Olympic and Paralympic athletes will be told the condoms, which have been handed out at the Olympics since South Korea's Seoul Games in 1988, should be "brought back by athletes to their respective home countries" to help them raise awareness of HIV and AIDS, the organizing committee says, per AFP. Japanese manufacturers who'd already started producing condoms for the event were also miffed to find out only their thicker latex prophylactics are allowed, not thinner polyurethane ones said to be more pleasurable. Reuters notes other restrictions and requests that will be in place for the Tokyo Games, including no foreign spectators, an ask that athletes eat by themselves, and a suggestion to spectators that they clap during events instead of shouting or singing. (More Tokyo Olympics stories.)

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