Athletes to be given free condoms at Tokyo Olympics

• 11,000 competing athletes will be given 14 condoms each when they descend on the Japanese capital for the game next month.

• However, the athletes are being discouraged by the International Olympic Committee from putting the condoms to use, citing the risks of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

• They hope that the athletes take them back to their home countries as a souvenir instead.

• According to the guidelines which were published in February, the athletes are required to stay at least two meters apart from each other.

• They are also supposed to avoid physical contact like handshakes and hugs.

• The athletes can only leave the Olympic Village under special circumstances and violation of rules would lead to penalties.

• It has been a tradition to handout condoms to the Olympians since the Summer Olympics in Seoul in 1988, when the AIDS epidemic had swept across the globe.