|
Front Page of the Day
Who are the hottest Olympians?Posted by Eric Mu on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 3:10 PM
 New Express 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.  Michael Phelps, the 5th sexiest male athlete 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? |
Partner Links
Jobs in China
Recent Comments
Henry on
The Eurasian Face
Caroline W on
Big in China
Michael on
Julia Lovell on translating Lu Xun's complete fiction: "His is an angry, searing vision of China"
Brandon K. on
Clueless academic takes on popular fantasy novels
Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
 From 2008
Books on China
 The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas. + Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet. + David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky
 (on the mainland)or Feedburner  (blocked in China) Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links) Top Links: Links from the top bar Danwei Jobs: Want ads Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30 |
 |
Chinese media, advertising, and urban life. |
|
tweet
facebook
bookmark
HaoHao
digg
Comments on Who are the hottest Olympians?
Xue Chen by a mile - not even close. If beach volleyball knew what was good for it - they'd market her like crazy. It didn't even matter that we got to see her while she was beating Americans - we still fell for her.
why am i not surprised to see a chinese publication *not* name any black-skinned beauty such as Kim Glass or Allyson Felix on this list?
also, is it now sacrilege to feel aroused by images of Guo Jingjing?
Michael Phelps becomes "hot" because of his world records.
What? No votes for the 14...err...16 yr-old gymnasts????
I'm sure that now the Chinese have read this article, they'll make a clean sweep of the "10 hottest athletes of the London Olympics".
I agree with slowboat that racist stereotypes played a significant role in determining this "beauty pageant". Kim Glass and most of the Brazilian women's volleyball team were undoubtedly the sexiest women to come to Beijing in a long time (okay, so I like tall women in tights jumping and smashing; shoot me)...yet they weren't even mentioned.
Jamaican sprinter USAIN BOLT is hot he is the sexiest jamaican athelet
Yeah agreed. I caught the women's volleyball game when I was still "interested" in the olympics, man my jaw dropped to the floor I was like damn is that legal playing in them short shorts...