The British Olympic Association's chief medical official's warning that athletes should avoid shaking hands at the games has baffled the British government.
"It goes without saying that we should all wash our hands regularly to keep them clean and prevent spreading bugs," the Department of Health said in a statement. "But there's no reason why people shouldn't shake hands at the Olympics."
Dr. Ian McCurdie has advised that athlets should avoid physical contacts with rivals and visitors at the London games because of the risk of spreading germs.
The BOA, however, tweeted to athletes after McCurdie's advice on Tuesday, "Do shake hands, do use hand foam, do wash your hands, do reduce the risk of catching a bug. It's all common sense..."
USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said, "We always encourage our athletes at the Olympic Games to embrace the Olympic spirit and meet, greet and interact with as many different athletes from as many nationalities as possible."
McCurdie pointed out that the Olympic village environment could be "pretty hostile one" for infection.
"I think that is not such a bad thing to advise," he said. "The difficulty is when you have got some reception and you have got a line of about 20 people you have never met before who you have got to shake hands with."
"Almost certainly, I believe, the greatest threat to performance is illness and possibly injury," he added. "At an Olympic Games or any major event, the performance impact of becoming ill or even feeling a little bit ill can be significant.
"Essentially we are talking about minimizing risk of illness and optimizing resistance. Minimizing exposure and getting bugs into the system and being more robust to manage those should that happen. Hand hygiene is it. It is all about hand hygiene."
"Being at an Olympic Games means you are normally inside a bubble and so there is effectively quite a limited number of people that you interact with when you are away in another country," McCurdie said. "In London we do not believe that is going to be the case. The variety of people the athletes and support staff are going to interact with is going to be huge."
