Canadian Olympic star Alysha Newman wants to connect on a ‘deeper level’ with her fans after winning a pole vaulting bronze medal in Paris this summer

Alysha Newman won a bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics (Image: instagram/alyshanewman)

Olympic bronze medallist Alysha Newman is hoping to use her newfound fame to connect with her fans on a “deeper level”.

The Canadian athlete won a pole vaulting bronze at the Paris Olympics this summer, going viral for her twerking celebration she unveiled after her final jump. Getting up off the mat after her final vault, the 30-year-old feigned an injury, clutching her leg whilst looking in the direction of her supporters as if to suggest she was in pain.

However, what followed saw Newman quickly switch up into a twerking celebration which went viral on social media on what was an exciting evening of pole vaulting inside the Stade de France. On the very same night Newman made waves on social media, Swedish athlete Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis jumped 6.25 meters in the air, breaking his own world record from a few months prior after having already secured gold in the men’s competition.

And now Newman wants to use her newfound Olympic fame to help her connect with her fans on a “deeper level.” Back in 2021, the Olympics were held in Tokyo, delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like all the athletes who attended the Tokyo Games, Newman was disappointed there were no fans in the stands when the Olympics were going on.

So, in an effort to take some of her loyal fans with her to the Olympics, and in part to help fund her preparations for Tokyo, the Canadian sensation launched her own OnlyFans account – which she says changed her life. The blonde bombshell boasts a following of more than 750,000 on Instagram and charges around £10 a month on her OnlyFans platform where she shares insights into how she eats, trains and stays fit – as well as occasionally sharing the odd steamy snap.

Newman is hoping to use her new found fame to continue to connect with her fans (Image: instagram/alyshanewman)

Speaking exclusively to Daily Star Sport, Newman said: “I started OnlyFans in 2021 because of COVID. I knew no one was coming to the Olympics with us and I wanted to still be unique and be different to a point where I was saying don’t just follow me on Instagram and see my journey to the Olympics that every other athlete is doing. I was like no, let’s connect on a deeper level. Let me message, answer questions, and be a little bit more personable on a personal level with people, without not making money for it.

“Because Instagram you can also do Q&A’s and you can post but I wanted to not only make money from the Olympics but I also wanted to connect with people, and then help me with energy because I wasn’t going to have anyone in the stands. So it started there and I said I’m just doing it for the 16 days, but it did so well.

“I was so excited and it blew up and then I said ok, well people are interested in what I eat, how do I train, how do I stay fit, when I have bad days, how do I get out of it, and then it just kept going over the years.

The Olympic sensation went viral for her twerking celebration (Image: Getty Images)

OnlyFans has garnered a reputation for hosting solely adult content on its platform, something which Newman hopes she can change. The Canadian pole vaulter says plenty of her teammates have asked her about it and she reckons some of them might follow her in joining the platform.

She added: “And then fast forward to this year, I started hearing people talk so positively about OnlyFans and I’m like why can’t I be the athlete that changes the stigmatism around OnlyFans?

“Why can’t I be the person that has a voice, and now that I have an Olympic gold medal, that can say, ‘hey, this platform might have a stigmatism of adult entertainment – which also, if you’re on it for that, you do you girl or boy, do what you want your life to be because that’s your life – but I want other athletes to make more money, connect with their fans more and that they should definitely join it’.

And she was delighted to win her bronze at the Olympics this summer (Image: Getty Images)

“That was the point that I realised and that it had flipped around. I want to be a part of this movement, I believe in this company [OnlyFans] so much and it changed my life and the way I processed things. I also got so mentally tough because of it and I learned to just live my life carefree, not living based off people’s opinions.

“And so many of my teammates have asked me to log into mine and see how it works and I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple or even hundreds of them go on after this Olympics. I mean you can see it on their [OnlyFans] profile now that they chefs, they have F1 drivers, they have DJ’s, boxers. You can see the platform is training to be more athlete based, but based on that athlete’s personality.”