PARIS – World polevault vice-champion Romain Mesnil’s unusual stunt to attract sponsorship – he ran through the streets of Paris naked – has paid dividends.
The silver medalist at the 2007 Athletics World Championships recently saw his sportswear sponsor scale down his contract due to the global financial crisis.
So the burly 31-year-old posted a video of himself running nude through the French capital on the Youtube website last month in a 46-second clip which has been viewed over one million times.
And on Tuesday he annouced that his unabashed cheek had been fully worth the effort with a new sponsorship deal worth 16 100 euros with ‘On vous heberge’, a French accomodation-finding website.
In a slightly less controversial approach he had also made an attempt to get sponsors via the French version of the eBay online auction website which secured a 7 500 euro contribution from an anonymous donor.
Mesnil, who is giving that last donation to charity, has said that while he would continue to be imaginative in his pursuit of funding, running naked was now behind him.
‘That’s finished for me, now I’ll move on to other things,’ said the French athlete.
– Nampa-AFP
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