Have British athletes ever been used as spies?

[dwwae received this question from Lance Gladhawk, Minnesota, U.S.A.]

For many years there has been speculation that some members of the British Olympic team present at the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow were also there to gather intelligence for the British government.

It is purported that the British sporting legend, Daley Thompson, had originally been highly trained by secret services to work alone as one of its key operatives under the codename: Typhoon Medals. A special tracksuit was designed for him with extra elastic around the knees enabling him to jump higher and further than any man had done before. Some say his moustache was grown in order to conceal a miniature radio device although we have no proof of this, it seems likely.

Thompson inadvertently broke the world decathlon record at the games which thrust him into the international limelight and thus rendered him useless as a covert operative - much to the annoyance of the British government who had spent a considerable portion of the defence budget on training him.

To add weight to this theory, a number of documents declassified in 2005 show inexplicably that members of the archery team were highly skilled in field communications, whilst the water polo team had been trained by members of the S.A.S in hand to hand combat.

Below: Rare photo allegedly of Daley Thompson AKA 'Typhoon Medals' in his special tracksuit, during a code-breaking training circa 1979.