Olympian asked 'What is this place?' after witnessing what two athletes were doing in raunchy Olympic village

A first-time Olympian was treated to a shocking sight on her first visit to the notorious Olympic Village.

Olympic Games competitors from all over the world are accommodated in a colossal "city within a city" where the serious business of competition gradually dwindles as events are completed and the atmosphere shifts towards party time.

The village, which appears in a different form somewhere in the world every two years, has a reputation that's less than salubrious.

Young people, even elite athletes, like to have a good time. Put them all together in one sprawling dormitory town and you can bet that everything that could happen, will happen.

When United States Women's National Team star Brandi Chastain showed up for the first time on home turf in 1996, she was given a crash course in the famed Olympic Village dining hall.

"When I walked in for the first time in Atlanta there were loud cheers," Chastain told ESPN in 2012.

"So we look over and see two French handballers dressed only in socks, shoes, jockstraps, neckties and hats on top of a dining table, feeding one another lunch. We're like, 'Holy cow, what is this place?'"

Chastain was a World Cup winner in 1991 and the USWNT won gold at the Atlanta Games too, beating China in the final in Athens.

She became a football icon three years later. The US won the World Cup again, at home once more, and this time Chastain was the story of the final.

After missing a penalty months earlier, the experienced midfielder scored the deciding spot kick against China in Pasadena.

A typical room at the Olympic Village (Image: Getty)

The 192-cap legend stripped away her jersey and celebrated with a knee slide in a sports bra, an image that echoed down the ages in women's football.

Back in the Olympic Village at the 2000 Games, Team USA apparently enjoyed some hedonistic debauchery of their own.

"The entire women's 4x100 relay team of some Scandinavian-looking country walks out of the house, followed by boys from our side. And I'm just going, 'Holy crap, we'd watched these girls run the night before,'" Olympic shooter Josh Lakatos recalled to ESPN.

But how might such a scenario come about?

Javelin thrower Breaux Greer: "The girls are in skimpy panties and bras, the dudes in underwear, so you see what everybody is working with from the jump. Even if their face is a 7, their body is a 20."