Tuesday 23 March 2010

Poll : Sexiest Woman of 2010 World Curling Championships

The 2010 women's world curling championships are now well under way in Swift Current, and once again we're asking you to vote for the sexiest competitor. The winner of the Olympic poll, the USA's Natalie Nicholson, isn't present this time. However, three of the top five from that poll are competing - Denmark's Camilla Jensen and Madeleine Dupont, and Scotland's Eve Muirhead. Also back into the fray is the winner of last year's world championship poll, home skip Jennifer Jones of Canada. Another strong contender this time round may be a woman who did not feature in either poll, Norwegian skip Linn Githmark - one of several of this week's competitors to have appeared nude in Ana Arce's famous series of calendars.

Here is the full list to choose from -

Wang Bingyu (China)
Liu Yin (China)
Yue Qingshuang (China)
Zhou Yan (China)
Zhang Xindi (China)
Iveta Staša-Šaršūne (Latvia)
Una Grava-Germane (Latvia)
Ieva Krusta (Latvia)
Zanda Bikše (Latvia)
Dace Munča (Latvia)
Eve Muirhead (Scotland)
Kelly Wood (Scotland)
Lorna Vevers (Scotland)
Anne Laird (Scotland)
Sarah Reid (Scotland)
Erika Brown (USA)
Nina Spatola (USA)
Ann Swisshelm (USA)
Laura Hallisey (USA)
Jessica Schultz (USA)
Cecilia Östlund (Sweden)
Sara Carlsson (Sweden)
Anna Domeij (Sweden)
Lotta Lennartsson (Sweden)
Sabrina Kraupp (Sweden)
Linn Githmark (Norway)
Henriette Løvar (Norway)
Ingrid Stensrud (Norway)
Kristin Skaslien (Norway)
Kristin Tøsse-Løvseth (Norway)
Ludmila Privivkova (Russia)
Anna Sidorova (Russia)
Nkeiruka Ezekh (Russia)
Ekaterina Galkina (Russia)
Margarita Fomina (Russia)
Madeleine Dupont (Denmark)
Denise Dupont (Denmark)
Angelina Jensen (Denmark)
Camilla Jensen (Denmark)
Ivana Bratic (Denmark)
Binia Feltscher (Switzerland)
Corinne Bourquin (Switzerland)
Heike Schwaller (Switzerland)
Sandra Ramstein-Attinger (Switzerland)
Marisa Winkelhausen (Switzerland)
Moe Meguro (Japan)
Anna Ohmiya (Japan)
Mari Motohashi (Japan)
Kotomi Ishizaki (Japan)
Mayo Yamaura (Japan)
Jennifer Jones (Canada)
Cathy Overton-Clapham (Canada)
Jill Officer (Canada)
Dawn Askin (Canada)
Jennifer Clark-Rouire (Canada)
Andrea Schöpp (Germany)
Melanie Robillard (Germany)
Monika Wagner (Germany)
Stella Heiß (Germany)
Corinna Scholz (Germany)


As ever, vote wisely!

Natalie Nicholson voted sexiest woman of the 2010 Olympic curling tournament

Assisted by an apparent coordinated effort by supporters of Celtic football club in Scotland (!), American lead Natalie Nicholson is the surprise runaway winner of our Olympic curling poll. There were many twists and turns during the course of the voting, with Denmark's Madeleine Dupont taking an early lead, while Nicholson failed to secure a single vote in the early days. But once the Nicholson juggernaut got underway, Dupont started to fade quite badly, and her Danish team-mate Camilla Jensen began to look like the best bet to deny Nicholson the crown. Indeed, Jensen did briefly sneak into the lead, but then there was another huge influx of Celtic-fans-for-Nicholson (beats me), at which point the lead became unassailable. Jensen did however secure second place, holding on in spite of a late flurry of votes for Switzerland's Carmen Schäfer - probably a reflection of the fact that Switzerland reached the medal matches and Denmark did not. Scotland's Eve Muirhead (nominally representing Great Britain for the purposes of the Olympics) followed up her third place in last year's World Championships poll by pipping Madeleine Dupont for fourth place.

Hear are the full results. As the number of votes cast was so huge this time round, I've listed the actual number of votes for each woman, rather than percentages -

1 Natalie Nicholson (USA) 188
2 Camilla Jensen (Denmark) 151
3 Carmen Schäfer (Switzerland) 143
4 Eve Muirhead (Great Britain) 97
5 Madeleine Dupont (Denmark) 94
6 Cheryl Bernard (Canada) 37
7 Ludmila Privivkova (Russia) 36
= Melanie Robillard (Germany) 36
9 Nicole Joraanstad (USA) 34
10 Anna le Moine (Sweden) 28
11 Eva Lund (Sweden) 24
12 Anna Sidorova (Russia) 21
13 Janine Greiner (Switzerland) 20
14 Ekaterina Galkina (Russia) 17
15 Debbie McCormick (USA) 16
16 Denise Dupont (Denmark) 15
17 Margarita Fomina (Russia) 14
18 Jackie Lockhart (Great Britain) 12
19 Anna Ohmiya (Japan) 11
= Carmen Küng (Switzerland) 11
21 Stella Heiß (Germany) 10
22 Kajsa Bergström (Sweden) 9
= Angelina Jensen (Denmark) 9
24 Allison Pottinger (USA) 8
= Ane Hansen (Denmark) 8
26 Lorna Vevers (Great Britain) 7
27 Mirjam Ott (Switzerland) 6
= Mari Motohashi (Japan) 6
29 Anette Norberg (Sweden) 4
= Susan O'Connor (Canada) 4
31 Wang Bingyu (China) 3
= Kelly Wood (Great Britain) 3
33 Kotomi Ishizaki (Japan) 2
= Nkeiruka Ezekh (Russia) 2
35 Cathrine Lindahl (Sweden) 1
= Corinna Scholz (Germany) 1
= Mayo Yamaura (Japan) 1
= Moe Meguro (Japan) 1
= Irene Schori (Switzerland) 1
= Tracy Sachtjen (USA) 1


An astonishing 753 sets of votes were cast in total - but as multiple voting was permitted, the number of individual votes cast adds up to far more.

We also ran two other Winter Olympic-themed polls. Here are the results -

Sexiest woman of 2010 Olympic ice dance

1 Tessa Virtue (Canada) 16
2 Sinead Kerr (Great Britain) 13
3 Tanith Belbin (USA) 10
4 Nora Hoffmann (Hungary) 7
= Oksana Domnina (Russia) 7
6 Penny Coomes (Great Britain) 4
7 Isabelle Delobel (France) 2
= Vanessa Crone (Canada) 2
= Anna Cappellini (Italy) 2
= Emily Samuelson (USA) 2
11 Allison Reed (Georgia) 1
= Nathalie Pechalat (France) 1


35 sets of votes were cast in total.

Hottest woman of 2010 Olympic ladies' figure skating event

1 Kiira Korpi (Finland) 10
2 Sonia Lafuente (Spain) 7
3 Sarah Meier (Switzerland) 5
4 Joannie Rochette (Canada) 4
= Laura Lepisto (Finland) 4
6 Julia Sebestyen (Hungary) 3
7 Ksenia Makarova (Russia) 2
= Elene Gedevanishvili (Georgia) 2
= Isabelle Pieman (Belgium) 2
10 Cynthia Phaneuf (Canada) 1
= Miki Ando (Japan) 1
= Anna Jurkiewicz (Poland) 1
= Kim Yu-Na (South Korea) 1


25 sets of votes were cast in total.

Monday 1 March 2010

Eurovision sexiest 2010 - the one that got away

Kristīna Zaharova of Latvia

Looking ahead to our annual 'sexiest woman of Eurovision' poll later in the year, it's such a pity that the song Snow in July didn't win the Latvian preselection on Saturday, as singer Kristīna Zaharova would have been sure to be a contender (for the poll rather than for the Eurovision itself!). Instead, Aisha and her song What For? goes forward to Oslo, and it'll be interesting to see how both she and her beautiful backing performers fare in the poll when it opens.