It was at the age of 17, the American track and field athlete Allison Stokke became a viral sensation. A controversial photo was taken when she was pole vaulting that almost ruined her career.
Is there a sportsman who went viral when they were not at the top of their game? No, right. At 17, Allison was just an amateur pole vaulter working hard on herself and just because she was attractive, she was exploited.
Allison Stokke: A Single Photo That Made The Athlete An Internet Sensation Overnight
Stokke struggled a lot to become a successful athlete and the internet meddled with her focus for quite a long time. Before becoming an athlete in her own right, she went through a lot. All thanks to her loved ones who kept her mental and physical health in check.
Who Is Allison Fowler?
Allison Rebecca Stokke Fowler is an American track and field athlete and a sportswear model. Allison was born on March 22, 1989. She was famous for her pole vaulting in which she broke many records in her college days. She received international fame for her controversial photo which became a viral sensation.
An Internet Star: The Fame Unintended
In 2007 a journalist took several photos of Stokke for a Californian track and field website. An image was re-posted in a sports blog whose majority of fans were males.
The photo captions about her attractive features and the caption read “Pole Vaulting Is Sexy, Barely Legal.” This made headlines and went on getting posted on several websites. The photographer threatened the website owner to remove the picture but it was too late.
Within weeks, Stokke’s photos had become a sensation crossing more than one million search engine results and making global headlines. Stokke told the Washington Post that “Even if none of it is illegal, it just feels really demeaning. I worked so hard for pole vaulting and all this other stuff, and it’s almost like that doesn’t matter.”
German weekly, Der Spiegel raised their voice by quoting “sex symbol against her will.” Many news channels took her story to emphasize the dangers of the internet being used to publicly sexualize young people.
Stokke only wished fame through pole vault and did not seek different attention. Framing such an athlete’s image sexually can de-emphasize their sports achievements. After she rose to fame from the controversial photo, many photographers attended her competitions and the fame remained for a very long time.
She broke multiple records in her college years and after college, she pursued pole vaulting. She failed to perform well at the 2012 United States Olympic Trials, unable to clear the opening height of 4.25 m. Her performance gradually declined thereafter in the following years but began competing in national tournaments.
Allison Stokke As A Fitness Model
The fame Allison had contributed a lot to her modeling career landing big sports brands like Nike, Athleta, and Uniqlo. She also worked with GoPro by making a series of pole vaulting videos with the GoPro attached to her pole. The action camera GoPro videos hit 6 million views on Youtube.
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