Front Page of the Day

Who are the hottest Olympians?

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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.

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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?

There are currently 8 Comments for Who are the hottest Olympians?.

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...

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