August 25, 2008
As the Beijing Olympic Games conclude, newspapers are enjoying the last of the festivities.
Most of today’s papers printed full-page photos of last night’s closing ceremony spectacular: the fireworks in the night sky, the floodlit Bird’s Nest, or the “memory tower” constructed with human bodies. Striving to be different from its peers, today’s New Express put its list of “the sexiest Olympic athletes” on the front page.
So who would win if the Olympic Games became a beauty contest?
According to the newspaper, the “sexiest” male athlete is Rafael Nadal Parera, the 22-year-old Spanish tennis champion. His female counterpart is Paraguay’s javelin thrower, Leryn Franco.
Franco is reported to be a part-time model and a runner-up at the Miss Bikini Universe pageant in 2006. She placed better there than she did in these Olympics, where she finished second to last in the qualifying round of her event and didn’t make it to the final.
Other athletes on the list: American basketball player Kobe Bryant, Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice, German ping-pong player Timo Boll, Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, American gymnast Anastasia Liukin, American swimer Micheal Phelps, and Chinese beach volleyball player Xue Chen.
The paper’s standard for what rates as “sexy” is a bit confusing: the caption that goes with fourth “sexiest” male athlete, Usain Bolt, reads, “He’s not that good-looking, but when he was galloping on the track, the whole world was shocked.”
On a side note, despite its 51 gold medals, China managed to put only one athlete among the top 10 hottest Olympians. Shouldn’t China try harder next time?