Canadian pole vaulter Alysha Newman is explaining her viral twerking celebration after taking home the bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
While speaking to CBC Sports on Friday, August 9, Newman, 30, shared that she wanted to prank her coaches after her win.
“I’m always injured, and I’m always getting back on the horse so I said I’m gonna scare my coaches because I want them to lighten up.” Newman said. “There’s photos of them being really serious and I could feel them [being] really intense. I mean, they’ve built me into becoming an Olympic medalist and not a lot of coaches can say that.”
She continued, “So 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.”
Newman, who is a popular model on OnlyFans, also told CBC Sports that the criticism she received from Olympic viewers over her dance celebration doesn’t bother her.
“My friends, my family, my coaches, my agents – if they said something mean, I would take it more [personally],” she said. “But people that I don’t know, I have a very good mind, I’m very strong mentally, that it just kind of rolls off my shoulders and no one understands what it’s like to be in my shoes.”
Newman, whose social media pages are filled with a mix of training posts, bikini photos and other endeavors, went on to explain the reason why she posts the content that she does.
“I want people to understand what I do, and that it’s not always going to be about pole vault,” she said. “I’m going to go on and I’m gonna be an entrepreneur on something else, I’m gonna run my own Business and one day I want to be a multimillionaire. So, at this time in my life, this year, I was a full-blown track athlete, but two months from now? Hey, I might be a millionaire.”
After medaling, Newman told German outlet BILD about her decision to start her OnlyFans account, which she said brings in a good chunk of change for her.
“It makes me confident and I feel good about it,” she told the outlet, noting that she doesn’t post photos of herself completely nude. Instead, she posts “a lot of my training sessions, talks about nutrition and lots of tips and tricks.”
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Newman’s historic bronze medal win is Canada’s first-ever medal in the event. During Wednesday’s final, she cleared 4.85 meters with her jump. She also set the Canadian record in her event.
Team USA’s Katie Moon took home the silver with her 4.85 meter jump. (Though they both cleared the same height, Newman had one more missed attempt, which earned her third place.) Australia’s Nina Kennedy took home the gold with a 4.9 meter jump.
The 2024 Paris Olympics conclude on Sunday, August 11.
