Russian snowboarder puts phone number on helmet, receives avalanche of texts
What do you do when you’re young, relatively famous and looking for entertainment in Sochi?
The obvious answer, according to Russian snowboarder Alexey Sobolev, is to put your cell phone number on your helmet and see what happens. Duh.
"I've got a collection of pictures," the 22-year-old told a USA Today reporter, failing to elaborate. “It's really boring in the Olympic Village, you know?”
Total text messages received thus far: 2,000 and counting, said Sobolev, who competed in Thursday’s slopestyle qualifying. Replying to that onslaught should quell any ennui, right? Especially if those pictures were cat pictures. Or part of the Selfie Olympics. Or related to the thousands of condoms available to this Winter Games’ crop of single-and-mingling athletes.
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This isn't Sobolev's first attention-grabbing stunt. He recently made headlines with a perceived shout-out to the controversial rock band Pussy Riot on his snowboard — an act some have interpreted as a form of protest. (Members of the group were jailed last year after criticizing Russian president Vladimir Putin at an impromptu show in a Moscow cathedral.)
Sobolev didn't design the board and played coy with reporters asking about its meaning.
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