Erotic glossy 'taints Olympics'

The special Olympic edition of the magazine raised a few eyebrows

Organisers of the Athens Olympics have opened a new front in their battle to keep the Games clean, by declaring war on soft pornography.

Marketing officials have gone to court to demand the withdrawal from news stands of the latest Greek edition of Playboy magazine.

Headlines such as "2004 seconds of ecstasy" and "Go for a Sexathon gold" corrupts the Olympic image, they say.

The explicit take on the Olympics was described as a "brutal insult".

Playboy also contains headlines such as "Gianna's wild Rogge and Roll" - a reference to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge and Athens 2004 chief Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki.

It also sports a cartoon of the Olympic rings composed of condoms.

Top-shelf bestseller

An Athens 2004 spokesman confirmed that a legal challenge had come from the image rights and marketing department.

"The issue at stake here is the protection of the Olympic symbols," he said.

"There is nothing unusual about this type of action."

Greek Playboy's legal representative said the magazine had been flying off the shelves since the controversy.

"They did very good negative advertising for us... now we're sure that even the last remaining copies of the August issue will be sold," Stelios Michalopoulos told Agence France Presse.

Organisers' bid to "clean up" the controversial issue, comes amid the more serious business of ensuring athletes are drug free - with a record number of doping tests being performed at the Games.

In the run-up to the Olympics a number of athletes have posed, scantily clad, for men's magazines including Playboy, FHM and Maxim.