Jessica Ennis-Hill speaks about saucy goings-on at Olympic Games

Jessica Ennis-Hill has spoken for the first time about the worst-kept secret of every Olympic Games...the saucy goings-on in the athletes' village.

There have been rumours for years about how competitors in the world's top tournament blow off steam in the apartments and public places reserved exclusively for athletes.

Dame Jessica was a gold medal winner in the London series in 2012 and silver-winner in Rio de Janeiro, four years later.

The retired British track and field athlete, who turns 38 in January, doesn't make a habit of talking about the non-sporty affairs of her ex-colleagues.

But she was refreshingly open in a podcast hosted by top comedians Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe.

The theme of the broadcast was supposed to be on parenting but Rob couldn't help himself by prying into the closed world few people get to see, let alone be a part of.

"Is the Olympic village the complete f**k fest we all imagine it is?" he asked. "Is it like the Love Island after-party?"

Ennis-Hill, who was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire six years ago, was happy to answer, amid the occasional lapse into giggles.

"I wouldn't know, essentially. But yeah, there is a lot that goes on in the village.

"There are just so many like different types of people and athletes and, you know, when you are training so hard like all the time and you can never let yourself go or switch off and then you put everyone into that environment together...

"I'm sure you know the swimmers finish quite early on in the schedules, so they are all really excited, and then athletics finishes that little bit later, so there is this whole sexual-like vibe going on."

The three-time world champion said athletes are either "buzzing because they have done so well" or are downbeat and in need of cheering up if they hadn't done well.

The sexy capers in Olympic villages are the titillating gossip of the sporting community after every tournament.

Since the 1980s, organisers have ordered truckloads of condoms so athletes can safely hook up.

Japanese administrators ordered 160,000 condoms to be handed out to athletes in their Olympic Village.

Former long jump star Susen Tiedtke once told German newspaper The Bild: "Sex is always an issue in the village.

"The athletes are at their physical peak at the Olympics. When the competition is over, they want to release their energy."

Matthew Syed, a former table tennis star who made his debut at Barcelona in 1992 claimed he'd had more sex during the competition than he'd ever had in his life.

"I am often asked if the Olympic Village - the vast restaurant and housing conglomeration that hosts the world’s top athletes for the duration of the Games - is the sex-fest it is cracked up to be," he wrote in The Times.

"That is to say twice, which may not sound a lot, but for a 21-year-old undergraduate with crooked teeth, it was a minor miracle.

"Barcelona was, for many of us Olympic virgins, as much about sex as it was about sport."