The tracksuits and bags of Egypt's Olympic team are emblazoned with the familiar Nike and Adidas logos, and the country's committee chairman says that's good enough - even though they're fakes.
"We signed with a Chinese distributor in light of Egypt's economic situation," Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed Ali on Wednesday.
Ali said the real thing was just too expensive, and the state of Egypt's battered finances led him to opt for the counterfeit gear, which he said was "sufficient."
And what if the sports apparel brands don't like it?
If Nike has a problem with it, then it should deal directly with the Chinese distributor who sold it, Ali said.
Messages seeking comment from Nike were not immediately returned late on Wednesday.
So far, the ones complaining are Egypt's athletes.
Synchronised swimmer Yomna Khallaf wrote on Twitter that she spent more than $US300 to buy better training gear.
"It's so frustrating that we had to pay extra 2000 (Egyptian) pounds to have other proper stuff to wear so that we can look okay not even good," she tweeted.
The bags the Egypt's Olympic Committee gave the athletes have large Nike logos on the front, but the zippers have "Adidas" written on them, said Khallaf, who is among Egypt's 112-strong team competing in London.
A popular uprising followed by 17 months of political unrest have decimated Egypt's tourism industry and driven investors away. The country's foreign currency reserves dropped by more than one-half since the uprising.
Ali said the committee studied several options before deciding to go with the Chinese distributor.
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