Condoms for Olympic Athletes To Be Auctioned

Some 5,000 condoms that were not used during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is being offered for sale in an auction. Each condom is marked with the Olympic motto of “faster, higher, stronger” both in English and in Chinese.

The units were collected by sports memorabilia enthusiast Zhao Xiaokai. The starting price will be one Yuan per unit (US $0.15) and will be sold by batch.

Olympic organizers have been distributing free condoms for the athletes to use. This has started at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. There were about 100,000 condoms specifically produced for the Beijing Olympics.

This will be the first time that condoms will be auctioned in China. The auction organizers included the items in the list to help promote public awareness for HIV and AIDS. There are concerns from them however that potential buyers may be too embarrassed to bid.

Information of the names of the athletes who have given the unused condoms was not disclosed.