"The court turned down ATHOC's (the Athens organisers') request for a restraining order against the circulation of the issue," Greek Playboy's legal counsellor Stelios Michalopoulos told AFP.

"Harder, deeper, longer," was how the magazine paraphrased the Olympic motto "faster, higher, stronger," in an Olympics special featuring photos of naked models throwing the discus, distance running or holding up Games' symbols such as the five rings and the Olympic torch.

"(Playboy) humiliates and ridicules Olympic symbols, signs, mottos, terms and mascots... causing enormous economic damage to our sponsors, license holders and Olympic product manufacturers," ATHOC said in the text of their written request.

The request from the organisers was submitted, and immediately turned down on Thursday, 20 days after the issue was on sale at the newspaper stands.

"It came as a complete surprise. Nobody had complained. I was called back from holidays over the affair," Michalopoulos said.

"2004 seconds of pleasure," was the title of a four-page "erotic tale of Olympic fantasy" featured in the special, and prompted the following indignant protest from the organisers:

"'2004' is a dominant part of our name and trademark and is inextricably linked with our company and the Olympic Games," organisers said in their written request, obtained by AFP.

"Win gold in the sexathlon," the magazine urged readers, adding:

"Contrary to the Olympic Games, at sex one doesn't wait every four years to prove one's value, and it's performance, not just participation, that counts."

"Some bureaucratic minds probably thought they absolutely had to do something about it," Michalopoulos said.

Not even the Games' mascots, Phevos and Athena were spared Playboy's blue irony, ATHOC complained in their request.

"The mascots of the Athens Olympics, symbols of brotherhood, cooperation, and noble emulation, appear in an erotic-sexual embrace, in full contradiction to what they represent, accompanied by a text that is entirely insulting, vulgar and deprecating for the mascots and our company which chose them as symbols and ambassadors of the 2004 Olympics".

Organisers also took offense by a picture of five condoms arranged in the colours and order of the Olympic rings.

Greek Playboy's August edition was distributed throughout Greece with around 40 000 copies. Friday morning, one day after the court decision, the issue was sold out in central Athens.

"They (ATHOC) did very good negative advertising for us... now we're sure that even the last remaining copies of the August issue will be sold," Michalopoulos said.

Playboy said ATHOC's legal challenge was an attack on the freedom of the press and denied that they insulted Olympic ideals.

"The pictures in question have been already published in various Playboy editions abroad, some of them during the Sydney (2000) and the Barcelona (1992) Olympics," Greek Playboy publisher Attikes Ekdoseis said.

"They do not offend Olympic ideals and no other Olympic organising committee had been ever bothered by their publication," the publisher added.

AFP