Jacky Chamoun topless photo provides Sochi sideshow

[ToneBender]

From: The CBC

Jacky Chamoun topless photo provides Sochi sideshow

Lebanon's Jacky Chamoun apologizes after racy pictures from old photoshoot surface on internet

Thomson Reuters Posted: Feb 12, 2014 12:47 PM ET| Last Updated: Feb 12, 2014 12:58 PM ET

Lebanon's Jacky Chamoun, left, embraces compatriot Chirine Njeim at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, B.C., Columbia,in 2010. This year, photos of her meant for a calendar are causing an uproar. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

In one of the odder sideshows of the Sochi Olympics, two skiers from Mexico and Lebanon are embroiled in a controversy over topless photos that one took of the other.

Lebanon's Jacky Chamoun apologized on Tuesday after racy pictures and a video from an old photoshoot surfaced on the internet, causing a stir in her Arab nation.

She said they were taken during a shoot for an Austrian ski calendar three years ago. The newly surfaced images, more revealing than those in the calendar, had not been meant to see the light of day.

Step forward Hubertus von Hohenlohe — aristocrat, photographer, businessman, pop singer and skier — who at the age of 55 is competing in his sixth Olympic Games and will represent Mexico in the slalom.

Von Hohenlohe, who descends from German nobility, was born in Mexico and has both Mexican and Liechtenstein passports, confirmed on Wednesday he had taken the pictures of Chamoun. But he said he had not made the video, and he had no idea how the latest material had found its way on to the internet.

In any case, the images were "not that heavy", he said. "They're very elegant and serene," he told Reuters, adding that he had spoken to Chamoun on Tuesday.

While she may regret having posed, he said, "she can't be upset with me — I didn't put anything anywhere" on the web.

Chamoun, a slalom specialist who lives in Switzerland and took part in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, said on Facebook: "I want to apologize to all of you, I know that Lebanon is a conservative country and this is not the image that reflects our culture. I fully understand if you want to criticize this."

In a show of support for the skier, her post had by Wednesday afternoon attracted well over 12,000 'likes.'

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/jacky-chamoun-topless-photo-provides-sochi-sideshow-1.2534034

Here's a link to the calendar:
http://www.20min.ch/winterspecial/news/story/17122887

[AElf]

He has a camera.
She has boobs.
Why is this news?

 

It isn't, it's just titillation.

Maybe Canada can offer her political asylum.

[Delta]

Cannot spell titillation without tit. And I wonder what the likes were for, for the attitude in the post or for the pictures it referred to.

[nudetrail]

  typical of our world today big deal over nothing

[luvthemgiants]

so sad.....and the timing is typical, photos exist for 2 years and come out during her Olympic event.

its a shame that it is a big deal, as it shouldn't be, but i respect her for apologising to her more conservative countrymen.

[davelemmo]

This isn't worth the attention of international talk media. Competitive athletes represent peak physical condition for humans. There is nothing wrong overall with posing scantily clad for a calendar. Sadly however, some of the female athletes featured come from less enlightened countries, where it is considered wrong to expose ones sexuality or skin when female. While it would be nice to say to people who are making a big deal about this to simply grow up, doing so would be insensitive to their cultural values no matter how detestable they may seem. Lebanon has been battling militant religion for some time now, and is not considerable as being one of the few secular nations in the middle east, though they are also not necessarily an Islamist society. Its a shame that the surfacing of photos racy photos of an athlete from the middle east has to cause so much international controversy in 2014. It shouldn't have to be this way. Yes athletes are symbols of national pride, but no that doesn't mean they should live under constantly public scrutiny. Athletes are people too, especially Olympic Athletes, as they are not paid to be elite athletes. All Athletes deserve the dignity to do in their spare time what they want to do with it, so long as they do not break the rules that govern their sport.