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Snowboarder's iPhone crashes after fans swamp him with nude pics

Russian snowboarder Alexey Sobolev decides to put his phone number on his helmet. This move was not welcomed by his iPhone.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read
Not bored any more. The Fumble/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

The lovely thing about snowboarders at the Winter Olympics is that they're devoid of political correctness.

They're just as full of "dude" and "cool" as they would be on a normal, pot-filled day in the mountains.

Some, though, don't always think through the consequences of their free style.

Take Russian slopestyle snowboarder Alexey Sobolev. His iPhone wishes you would. For Sobolev had the, um, cool idea of putting his phone number on his helmet.

Why would he do that? The Daily Mail suggests that he was merely bored. And when a 22-year-old snowboarder is bored, he seeks action.

Perhaps he thought that he'd move too quickly for anyone to note it down. Sadly, with the joys of DVR, freeze frame, and highly advanced photography, his particulars drifted far and wide.

As Yahoo Sports reports, so many people contacted him that there were unforeseen consequences.

The first of these was that he received a handsome number of images that featured comely women in a state of absolute nudity.

Oddly, this didn't seem to disturb him at all.

Indeed, Yahoo Sports quoted him as saying of one picture: "Yeaaaaah. She is really good."

You will be stunned into returning to your bed when I tell you that the International Olympic Committee ordered Sobolev to cover up the phone number. (He didn't make Saturday's finals, but we all know that the IOC is always most concerned with decorum.)

The other consequence? It seems his iPhone was so appalled with his behavior that it went on strike. It was reportedly so overwhelmed with the number of messages and images (more than 2,000 in total) that it swooned and seized up.

Once it had taken a rest, it restarted, so that he could appraise the various images and share his opinions with reporters.

I'm not sure whether other sportsmen should follow his path. There might be difficult consequences if, say, a bored Tom Brady wore his phone number on his Patriots helmet. I am not sure that his wife, Giselle Bundchen, would approve.

Moreover, who sends naked pictures of themselves to sportsmen they don't know?

There seems a peculiar level of desperation on both sides, one that boredom can't quite excuse.

"Love me! Love me!" both parties seem to be screaming. The trouble is, deserving that love takes a lot more than screaming.