To the Games hosts, it was the perfect chance to showcase treatments developed long before the Ancient Greeks met to compete in Olympia. So it is that, for the first time in Olympic history, the athletes' village is equipped with a clinic offering traditional Chinese treatments.

Reports suggest that the initiative is proving to be a success. Sui Ma, a practitioner at the clinic, told The Times: “We have had many athletes coming in. Some have come in with old traumas that perhaps haven't been recognised. Also, because it's a very strong competition, many people have new injuries.”

The clinic has four acupuncturists from the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. The Beijing Massage Hospital has also supplied four of its finest traditional masseuses. Speaking from the hospital in Central Beijing, Jin Tao said: “They are working shifts and they are rushed off their feet. I haven't seen them since they started working there last month.”

Tony Smith, the coach of the Canadian gymnastics team, told the state newspaper China Daily that he was astonished when a niggling pain in his back vanished after a single acupuncture session. “It really does work,” he said. “I will definitely recommend it to my athletes.”

Ola Ronsen, the head doctor for the Norwegian team, said: “I talked to one of the Chinese practitioners before we arrived, mostly focusing on sleep disturbances and other types of imbalances.” When he arrived, he went for a full check-up. “The doctor discovered problems I didn't tell him of,” he said.

Other athletes have viewed the service with a mixture of curiosity and caution, fearful of inadvertently ingesting anything that might place them on the wrong side of the drug testers. The Government has ordered traditional medicine vendors to isolate and label any medicines that could be in breach of the International Olympic Committee's list of banned substances.

Beneath glass counters in the Tongrentang store are dried bird's nests, to help to “stimulate the vital forces” and to treat coughs and colds, as well as dried sea horses, which heal bumps and bruises and are best consumed boiled or with alcohol. The ideal treatment for athletes appears to be glossy ganoderma. The enormous mushroom, which grows on the mountains of Liaoning province, calms the body, relieves asthma and can aid sleep.

A member of staff insisted that all athletes ought to take Chinese medicines. “I have seen athletes in here,” she said. Had any of them purchased the dried deer penises to boost their potency? She could not possibly say.

Another virility aid was available. A helpful lady pointed at an emaciated form and said that it was “the dog's testicles”. She appeared to be boasting of its efficacy, until The Times's translator intervened. “No, that's what it is,” she said. “Dog's testes.”