وسيم الأولمبياد..Spoof

Leryn Franco and Olympic Athletes Popular for the Wrong Reasons

Sometimes it does not take a gold medal for an Olympic athlete to become popular.

In 2008, Leryn Franco burst onto the scene as a javelin thrower from Paraguay, but it had nothing to do with her athletic abilities. Her looks allowed her to be the second-most searched athlete on Yahoo! during the Beijing games, behind only Michael Phelps.

Phelps won eight gold medals. Franco finished in 51st place.

This year, Franco will not be the only athlete making the headlines for the wrong reasons. Competitors in many different sports are going from obscurity to household name before they even participate in the games, and it is a trend that is only getting worse.

Stephanie Rice, the gold medalist swimmer from Australian is one of the best athletes in her sport. However, her abilities in the pool is not what got people talking this year.

Rice tweeted a picture of herself wearing a bikini last month, and many people have not stopped discussing it since. While some consider it racy, it is nothing worse than what other athletes wear in competition.

The incident turned out to not be that big of a deal, but the swimmer still became the second-most searched athlete of the 2012 Olympics.

At least Rice will be allowed to compete in the Olympic games. Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou was banned from the competition following a racist tweet. According to Fox Sports, she said, ''With so many Africans in Greece, the West Nile mosquitoes will be getting home food!!!''

Just because athletes now have a venue to say anything they want to the world, it does not mean they should. These are public figures that should set an example to everyone. They do not need so say anything that comes to mind.

Even the U.S. women's soccer team is doing their best to take the attention away from their magnificent play on the field.

In the past two years, star forward Alex Morgan has posed in only body paint in Sports Illustrated, while veterans Abby Wambach and Hope Solo wore even less in ESPN's Body Issue.

Solo has gained even more press for her recent comments on Twitter criticizing the announcing of former star Brandi Chastain.

This team is one of the best in the Olympics in any sport, but it seems the only way people will pay attention is after cheap stunts.

Hopefully, stars in the future will make noise for what they do in their competition and not outside of it.