Olympic participants will have a hard time breathing in Beijing come 2008, but Australian officials want to emphasize to their team that horseplay with a hooker, sucking down tainted fruit, and getting tattoos can be just as dangerous.

Australian team doctor Peter Baquie said athletes should wait until returning to Australia before getting any ink - which is considered almost a rite of passage by Olympic team members once they complete their Olympic competition. Baquie said athletes ran the risk of contracting hepatitis B by getting tattoos or any body piercing in China because there was a 20 per cent carriage rate in the country. He also warned there was a high incidence of HIV AIDS among its sex workers.

Yipes! Our greatest threat is a wifi melt down. Or maybe an allergic reaction from our morning wheat bagel. So keeping needles away from your skin and keeping your wang in your pants should be enough, right? Wrong.

Australian Paralympic doctor Larissa Trease said there had been a recent case of apparent human-to-human transmission of the bird flu and said athletes should avoid market areas where live birds were kept or areas where there were pigeons or ducks or bird feces. She said tap water in China was unsafe to drink and other international athletes had been told not to eat fish, salads, soft poached eggs, rare meats, hamburgers, stuffed meats and pastries that contained cream.

As long as the beer is safe there shouldn’t be a problem.

Athletes put on alert over tatts, fruit, sex workers [Sydney Morning Herald]
Image [BeijingOlympicFan]