London Olympic organisers are investigating how a bucket of Australian-tagged condoms found its way into the athletes' village without official consent.
Australian BMX cyclist Caroline Buchanan tweeted a photograph from the athletes' village of a container of condoms with a placard reading "Kangaroos condoms, for the gland Down Under" with the picture of a boxing kangaroo.
She joked that the container seemed to back up rumours that the athletes' village becomes a hot bed of activity as thousands of competitors complete their events and celebrate after years of working to get to the Olympics.
Barcelona started the trend of supplying free condoms to athletes when the Spanish city held the Games in 1992, with the IOC endorsing the move to help AIDS awareness and prevention. The handouts came with health information.
The London Olympic organisers, LOCOG, have provided 150,000 free condoms in dispensers for the 10,800 athletes at the Games. They are supplied by Durex, part of British consumer goods group Reckitt Benckiser, which paid for the supply rights. A LOCOG spokeswoman said they were trying to find out who distributed the so-called Kangaroo condoms, with the container shown to hold condoms from Durex rivals Ansell Ltd, an Australian company and Pasante, a private British company.
While a spokeswoman for Ansell said it could well be a prank, Pasante managing director Lawrence Boon said, "We have no association with the Olympics but we did launch a gold condom this year for champions."
{{/usCountry}}While a spokeswoman for Ansell said it could well be a prank, Pasante managing director Lawrence Boon said, "We have no association with the Olympics but we did launch a gold condom this year for champions."
{{/usCountry}}The number of condoms supplied at London tops the 100,000 made available to athletes in Beijing four years ago. In Sydney in 2000, organisers took delight in having to order 20,000 more condoms after the initial allocation of 70,000 ran out.