Olympics High School

You are Time Magazine's 2006 Person of the Year because 2006 was, according to Time, the year that you controlled the flow of information.

And you have made high school pole vaulter Allison Stokke a notable person. Google has 445,000 results on a search for her name, and after you made her famous, the real media followed suit: She's been featured on the front page of the Washington Post and her hometown newspaper is selling mugs with her picture on it.

So why, given her status, can't you write a Wikipedia entry for Stokke? Wikipedia is supposed to be the world's largest encyclopedia, with a wealth of information available to all, but Stokke is one notable person whose information can't be found there. If Stokke had an entry it would be here, but the entries that have been written about her have been deleted.

Why are Wikipedia users deleting her entry? One person who deleted Stokke's entry gave the laughable explanation of "no evidence of notability (except fringe Internet phenomenon)." Right. The Washington Post is a fringe internet phenomenon. Another person who deleted her entry cited her age, neglecting to mention that Stokke is an adult and there are many Wikipedia entries about people younger than her.

I don't really get how Wikipedia editors decide who's worthy of an entry and who isn't, but there are certainly less famous people than Stokke who have entries. Wikipedia's guidelines say:

In borderline cases, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid. It is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives.

It does no harm and is not titillating to list Stokke, mention who she is and explain why the Washington Post published a front-page article about her. I'm not particularly comfortable with the fact that Allison Stokke is famous, but I'm not particularly comfortable with the fact that Jeffrey Dahmer is famous, either. That doesn't mean I should delete his Wikipedia entry. Face it: This is the world we live in, and if Wikipedia is going to reflect the world we live in, it needs an Allison Stokke page.

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

When we last mentioned the saga of high school pole vaulter Allison Stokke, we noted that she was on the front page of the Washington Post because of the popularity of her pictures on the internet.

But if you really love those pictures, you don't have to settle for seeing them in the newspaper. Sports by Brooks notes that the Orange County Register is both reporting on the "unwanted attention" surrounding Stokke and selling pictures of her.

You can go the dignified route and buy your Stokke pictures in framed mahogany for $215, or you can get a picture of her on a mouse pad (which, I guess, eliminates the need to surf the web looking for pictures of her) for $14.95. But the best choice is probably the $16.95 mug. Nothing says class like drinking out of a cup with a high school pole vaulter's picture on it.

Image Credit: Sports by Brooks.

This is the front page of today's Washington Post. The front-page stories are about U.S. policy in Sudan and Iran, the war in Iraq and Memorial Day, crowded public schools and the Secret Service protecting presidential candidates.

And Allison Stokke, a high school pole vaulter who has become an internet sex symbol.

Stokke is great at what she does -- she could be an Olympic gold medalist some day -- but that's not why she's in the Washington Post, and it's definitely not why the story about her is currently the most-viewed article on the Post's web site. Stokke's fame is about her looks, and the story asks whether we can all feel comfortable about adult men gawking at pictures of a high school athlete on the internet.

The blog With Leather made Stokke a star, although her picture was all over the internet before that. Was With Leather editor Matt Ufford wrong to post photos of her? I don't think so. She's 18, and With Leather is all about the intersection of sports and attractive women.

And yet I still feel uncomfortable with Stokke's celebrity status, mostly because she feels uncomfortable with her celebrity status. Stokke just wants to be a high school student and a pole vaulter, and it's a shame that she's now more than that.

Previously at FanHouse:
High School Pole Vaulter an Internet Sensation

Yesterday I noted approvingly that swimmer Amanda Beard is posing for Playboy. So you might think I'd also approve of the way pole vaulter Allison Stokke has become an internet sensation because of her good looks.

Well, I don't. Take a look at this YouTube interview of Stokke (which has been viewed nearly 30,000 times) and you'll see why:

One difference between Stokke and Beard is obvious: Stokke is still in high school while Beard is a grown woman.

The other difference between Stokke and Beard is that Beard has accomplished what she set out to do in her athletic career and is now choosing to pursue a career in modeling. Stokke shows in the interview that she's serious about her sport and wants to focus on that, and she's had internet stardom thrust upon her. If, some day, Stokke chooses to pose for Playboy, fine. But right now, it's a little creepy that a young woman who's still in high school is garnering this kind of attention.

This is Jessica Long. She was born without bones in her lower legs, and both legs were amputated when she was 18 months old. She took up swimming when she was 10 and won three gold medals at the 2004 Paralympics just two years later. Last week she received the Sullivan Award as the best amateur athlete in the country. She's 15 and holds the Paralympic record in 12 events.

Long's remarkable journey from an orphanage in Russia to the top of the amateur sports world in the United States is documented in a New York Times column by George Vecsey that is, unfortunately, available to subscribers only. Reading about her, what I like best about Long is that she doesn't seem to see herself as remarkable. She told USA Today, "I just like to swim."