A lot of women will have to have a lot of sex with a lot of men to get Logan Campbell to the 2012 Olympic Games.

Yes, you read that right. Campbell, to cut a long story short, is a New Zealand taekwondo athlete who has opened a brothel to finance his ambition of lifting an Olympic medal in London.

At the last Games, in Beijing, Campbell competed in the 68-kilogram category only to be swept aside in the first round. To do better in London, Campbell figures he needs roughly $200,000 so that he, a doctor and a coach can travel, train and compete beforehand in Europe and Asia. Unlike last time, he doesn’t want his parents to foot most of the bill. “My mother has wanted a new kitchen for the past 10 years but hasn’t been able to do that because she has spent all her money on my taekwondo,” he says.

Hence his conversion to brothel-keeping. He has more than a dozen women handing over half their earnings to him. It is, in his words, “a good moneymaking industry”.

Campbell sees himself as nothing more than a businessman, able thanks to the law to sell sex as others would kebabs or cars, without an ounce of shame. “I’d feel worse selling cigarettes than doing what I’m doing,” he said in a phone interview this week. “What I’m doing is safe and healthy. I run a real classy place, it’s not a third-world country. All the girls are over 20 years old, they are here of their own free will, and they make more money than I do.”

... contd.