Sometimes size counts. The Gay Games in Amsterdam hit the headlines recently as 15,000 participants took part in 29 sports in one of the biggest jamborees on the planet. It is also the first time the games have moved out of North America having been first staged in San Francisco in 1982.

Among others Levi Strauss and Durex were sponsors for the event, which filled Amsterdam's 32,000 hotel beds when over 200,000 spectators hit town. Organisers stressed that the games were not for the exclusive enjoyment of gays and lesbians.

But at the Sydney Olympic Games it's clearly quantity rather than size. Athletes are to be granted a daily quota of three condoms - an allowance which has even surprised the boss of the firm supplying them.

Ron Chadwick, the head of Australian firm Pacific Dunlop Ltd, which owns the official games condoms supplier Ansell, admitted: "I was rather surprised at the allocation of three condoms per athlete per day for 17 days." Well, now we know why every athlete wants to go the Olympics.