Olympic Village Condoms
U.S. women’s soccer star Hope Solo recently dished about serious partying at the Beijing Games, and some newly arrived athletes say they can hardly wait for the fun to begin.
“The Olympics is the height of your career, so you might do some things you don’t usually do,” British beach volleyball player Shauna Mullin said with a giggle Wednesday.
Most, like Mullin, will restrain from going too far, aware they’re in the international spotlight.
Still, there’s no need to be prudish, according to the man overseeing the health of the Brazilian team.
“(Sex) is common at the Olympics. It’s necessary. It’s natural,” Dr. Joao Olyntho Machado Neto said. “If you are going to be healthy people, why not make sex? … Brazil is very tolerant with sex as a country. We don’t have Victorian minds and we’re not religious.”
Ivory Coast swimmer Kouassi Brou was one of the youngest competitors in Beijing at 16, but he’s grown up now.
And ready for some Olympic love.
“In 2008 I was so young and so shy, so I didn’t interact with the women,” the 20-year-old Brou said. “But now I’m a big man. So I can try. I will try.”
And he’s clear about his ambitions.
“If they are beautiful, it’s OK,” he said.
Thousands of free condoms will be available. Organizers have heard enough about village antics from previous games to know there will be heavy demand by athletes for contraception.
Solo recalled seeing competitors having sex out in the open in Beijing.
“On the grass, between buildings, people are getting down and dirty,” the 2008 gold medalist told ESPN The Magazine recently.
Still, her revelations startled some athletes interviewed in the athletes village on Wednesday.
“It’s not something I’ve seen at all. … Maybe I wasn’t up on the right nights,” Australian canoeist Warwick Draper said. “It’s not something I think you’d expect to see in the village.”
