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Nude sailors strip in bid for Olympics glory

The Local Spain
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Nude sailors strip in bid for Olympics glory
The Olympic hopefuls posted the picture as part of a social media drive to raise their profile. Photo: Barreiros Curbelo Sailing Team/Facebook

Two Spanish Olympic sailing hopefuls have thrown caution to the wind by posing nude to raise their profile in the lead-up to the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro.

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How do Olympians raise their profile if they are not as famous as sprinter Usain Bolt? It's a conundrum for many athletes taking part in less popular sports. 

But Spanish sailors Onán Barreiros and Juan Curbelo, who are hoping to compete together in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, recently found an interesting solution to the problem.

In January the two 470 class sailors based in Spain's Canary Islands posted an intriguing message on their Facebook page.

"If we get to 1,500 likes on our Facebook page before before February 28th we will pose nude on our boat and post the picture," the pair wrote.

A little over a week later, the goal was reached and on Saturday the two took to their boat in the nude. As promised, they posted a picture on their site. 

But the decision about which picture to use wasn't an easy one.  "We didn't want to show too much, or too little and end up cheating people," said Barreiros told Nauto360 magazine.

The choice has proven popular, however. "The image has been there a few days and more than 27,000 people have already seen it," Barreiros said.

"Now people stop us and say hi at out club in Gran Canaria to talk about the picture," said Curbelo. 

Barreiros has already participated in the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and in the London 2012 edition while Curbelo is hoping to make a first appearance at the Games.   

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