The Cold War was cold because the US and the Soviet Union both had nuclear weapons, and neither side wanted to use them. But competition was fierce in other arenas besides the battlefield, the most obvious being the Space Race and the Olympic games. Both were opportunities to to prove which political system was better, but the Olympics were where people from each nation actually got together. There have been quite a few defections from the USSR and communist Eastern Bloc countries during the Olympics, and the US covertly encouraged those as another point for the West in the one-upmanship battle.
The CIA sometimes involved US athletes in engaging Soviet athletes to discuss defecting during the Olympics. We might never know the extent of their efforts, but in 1960, javelin star Al Cantello was approached by a mysterious government agent about arranging the possible defection of Soviet long jumper Igor Ter-Ovanesyan. US sprinter Dave Sime had already been recruited by the CIA to help facilitate such a defection. Cantello, who died earlier this year, told his story decades after the fact, and you can read it at Smithsonian. -via Damn Interesting