Monday, January 12, 2009

Alexandra Kosteniuk: The modeling is just a hobby.

This article is from MiamiHerald.com

An aspiring model who uses her good looks to promote chess, Kosteniuk has been compared to Russian tennis knockout (and Miami Beach resident) Anna Kournikova. (Kosteniuk debunks the comparison by noting that she has won individual tournaments, a feat the other Russian cannot claim.)

But, like Kournikova, Kosteniuk has managed to broaden her sport's appeal by selling her combination of talent and beauty.

About 3,000 people subscribe to her podcast at chessiscool.com, and about 10,000 others log on each month to her website, where they can see photos of Kosteniuk in bikinis and buy her instructional DVDs.

''It's the most popular chess site out there,'' said her husband, 49, who is also her webmaster and publicist.

After which, Mrs Kosteniuk claimed:

`The modeling is just a hobby. What I really want is for people to enjoy chess the way I do.''

Is that really the case Mrs Kosteniuk? Okay, I am a chess purist and a hopeless conservative one. I never once thought that modeling and chess could merge into one single force and break the friction between the two. Much more seeing a world women chess champion posing in bikinis to attract tens of thousands of male chess players to her site every month. Is chess really have a place for sex symbols like Alexandra Kosteniuk? Yeah I know, this is already the 21st century, the internet age, where everyone could start a sort of revolution of their own and it is Mrs Alexandra Konsteniuk that is in the fore front of what she claimed she is promoting the "talent and beauty" in chess or should we say "talent and bikinis?"

2 comments:

timhortons knight chess blog said...

im downloding to my ipod some of her chess podcast.

you can have her podcast for free at i tunes.

Des Catolos said...

that would be quite interesting. better check it out.