What happens when 10,000 young and fit people from all over the world get together? Judging by previous Olympic games the Olympics is not all training and competition. In the 2004 Athens Games 130,000 condoms were distributed to athletes and in Sydney athletes were given a supply of three a day, but more had to be ordered in.

“One of the big misconceptions is that every athlete is 100 percent serious about being there,” said Amy Acuff an American high jumper and two-time Olympian who appeared in Playboy. “A number of athletes in the Village - people who know they don’t have a chance - are there to have a party.”

This raises the question as to whether having sex the day before a big competition will have an effect on an athlete’s match day performance.

“The night before has no effect on strength or endurance or any of the physical abilities of the athletes,” says physiology expert Dr Ian Shrirer, a former president of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine. “A lot of people think it has to do with the psychological effects.”

Casey Stengel a former manager of the New York Yankees and New Your Mets has a less scientific view:

“Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player,” said Stengel. “It’s staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.”

In Vancouver a group of sex trade workers are attempting to form a co-op brothel in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. “It defines a structure for us to work together as a community,” said Susan Davis, a development co-ordinator for what will be called the West Coast Co-operative of Sex Industry Professionals.

It is unlikely any such arrangement will be made in China where prostitution is illegal where the most serious offenses can receive the death penalty.

The myths of sex before sport

Vancouver sex trade group wins co-op status