Canadian Olympian Alysha Newman has just popped up in a social media ad for The League, a dating app that bills itself as “a selective and high-quality community of motivated daters looking for meaningful long-term relationships.”
In the video, which has been posted to TikTok, the 30-year-old pole vaulter from London, Ont., says to the camera: “You don’t want to date me. I’m always aiming higher.” This is followed by a montage of her sporting activities, and then back to Newman, wearing a towel and stepping into a sauna as she adds: “…unless you do.”
Who is Alysha Newman?
Newman is a track-and-field athlete specializing in the pole vault, a sport in which she holds both the Canadian and the Commonwealth Games records for a woman. She competed in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Summer Games, winning a bronze medal at the most recent event. This was the first time a Canadian woman had medalled in pole vault at the Olympics. Her distance was 4.85 metres, which is now the Canadian record.
Is this her first foray into social media?
Hardly. Newman has a history of acknowledging and making use of her athleticism and sex appeal.
“I’ve loved the fact that I can turn my strength and my beauty on the track into revenue and an empire,” she told the Toronto Star earlier this year. “Why wouldn’t I do that? Other people are making money off of my looks and likeness, just ask the Olympic Games.”
She has also set up an OnlyFans page, as have a number of other Olympians including rower Robbie Manson (New Zealand), divers Timo Barthel (Germany), Diego Belleza Isaias (Mexico) and Matthew Mitcham (Australia), and springboard diver Jack Laugher (Britain). Newman says she used the money she earned to buy property and build up her savings.
“I never loved how amateur athletes can never make a lot of money,” she told the CBC. “This is where my entrepreneurial skills came in.”
What about traditional media?
Back in 2020, Newman also appeared in an ad for Agent Provocateur lingerie, alongside American hurdler and sprinter Queen Harrison Claye, American climber Sasha DiGiulian and British gymnast Georgia-Mae Fenton.
The ad — and its launch date, International Women’s Day — was not without its detractors. Fellow Canadian Olympian Sage Watson was upset by the ad, posting her reaction on Instagram.
“My heart broke when I watched a recent lingerie campaign video as it zoomed in on women’s butts and breasts as they did sporting activities,” she wrote in a post at the time. “As a female athletes that’s not what makes our bodies amazing it’s our arms, legs, abs, backs and our mental strength. I was sexually harassed for months after the Olympics because my buns rode up after my hurdle race and the camera man zoomed in for the world to see a close up of my butt … people didn’t care that I made my first Olympic semifinal they just cared that my butt was shown on international television.”
What was the deal with the twerk?
Just after her meal-winning jump in August, Newman went viral when she twerked in celebration. Reaction to the move was also mixed, but as she later told the media, it wasn’t intentional; she was trying to prank her coaches by seeming to be injured, and then showing she wasn’t.
“I said I’m gonna fake an injury and dance after. But it just happened very fluid. I didn’t honestly think, ‘I’m going to twerk.’ But just from grabbing that and getting to the knee with the twerk, it just all worked out in one.”
What else is Newman known for?
Hoping to give back to the sport that brought her such fame, Newman has been meeting with officials in Caledon, just north of Toronto, with the aim of building a new indoor training facility for pole vault and other track-and-field events. She’s also planning on hosting a gala fundraiser to help fund the project.
“If there’s any Olympic gift I can give my coaches, it’s to give them a facility where they can develop more pole vaulters, more high jumpers, more long jumpers, and Canada is dominating like crazy in the throws events,” she said. “Money is going to need to be raised and so I think (that will take) most of my time this off-season.”
Meanwhile, her ad for The League is probably helping to raise money for that venture as well. According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, some users are paying almost $1,000 a week to access the site’s top features.
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