During the Sydney Olympics, 70,000 condoms were distributed to athletes for their use but they ran out so fast that another 20,000 had to be brought in. Learning their lesson, officials for the Athens games provided 130,000 condoms free of charge to athletes. At the meticulously manicured 66 hectare Olympic village, BOCOG officials have done such a wonderful job preparing everything from Peking Duck to Chinese massage, calligraphy lessons, live Chinese folk music and armies of smiling volunteers to keep athletes entertained that they decided they could do without the condom gift-bags this year. Alcohol has been banned in the village (with all the wonderful Chinese tea that you can have, why would you want to booze?) and the inhouse 90s pop disco shuts down at midnight, leading Catherine Bremer of Reuters to declare in this amusing article — "the evening entertainment sucks". We also loved this complaint made in broken English by Kazakh canoeing trainer Alexandr Davydov which pretty much sums up what life is like within the village:

“Is too many smiley and good behavior. No TV and no frozen... Just sitting in the apartment each night...”

In our past life as a media whore public relations executive, we learnt that one of the defining elements of PR with Chinese characteristics is that cash is not only frequently extended in return for positive coverage, it is actually industry standard that you hand out the cash to journalists in nice little envelopes discreetly tucked into the media kit as "travel expenses" (车马费). That this is standard practice is hardly news, but tough luck anyways for the Gehua New Century Hotel which hosts the official non-accredited media center for the Beijing Olympics because it's just been busted by Nick Mulvenney of Reuters for offering journalists "500 yuan for a 'positive' article on the hotel of 100 to 500 words in length and 1,000 yuan for an article of between 500 and 1,000 words". PR manager of the hotel Zhao Xiaoda explained it away in a phone interview with Reuters by saying, "We want to extend our reputation through the opportunity of the Olympics, it is necessary to promote our brand. I understand it is different from international practice. It was a decision of the PR department not the hotel." Let's see how BOCOG deals with this one. more ›