"The organisers of the Athens Olympics have vainly tried to remove the Greek edition of Playboy from the newspaper stands for offending the Games with a section on the Olympian traditions of sex, the magazine said Friday.

"The court turned down ATHOC's (the Athens organisers') request for a restraining order against the circulation of the issue," Greek Playboy's legal counsellor Stelios Michalopoulos told AFP.

"Harder, deeper, longer," was how the magazine paraphrased the Olympic motto "faster, higher, stronger," in an Olympics special featuring photos of naked models throwing the discus, distance running or holding up Games' symbols such as the five rings and the Olympic torch.

"(Playboy) humiliates and ridicules Olympic symbols, signs, mottos, terms and mascots... causing enormous economic damage to our sponsors, license holders and Olympic product manufacturers," ATHOC said in the text of their written request."