A Lebanese skier is receiving negative feedback after topless pictures taken a couple of years ago went viral and caused a scandal back in her home of Lebanon, Yahoo News reported.
Images of Jackie Chamoun, 22, appeared online earlier this week and have caused more a scandal back in her home country than in Russia or the United States, according to Yahoo News. Chamoun is currently in Sochi to compete.
After the topless images surfaces, Faisal Karami, Lebanon's sports minister asked the Olympic committee for a full investigation and were afraid the images would damage the country's reputation, Lebanon's National News Agency reported, according to Yahoo News.
Lebanon is considered much more conservative than Western nations, but the U.S. Lebanese Olympic Committee said shortly after the pictures surfaced they would not remove Chamoun from the Sochi competition, Yahoo News reported.
The images were taken three years ago for an annual skier calendar organized by another Olympian skier named Hubertus von Hohenlohe, representing Mexico, according to Yahoo News. Olympians like Team USA's Julia Mancuso also posed for the calendar in the past.
Chamoun was clothed in the photo used in the calendar, but more behind-the-scenes videos and images leaked and included the images of Chamoun topless, according to Yahoo News.
The video, which went viral immediately and gained more than 300,000 views in less than 24 hours, shows glimpses of nudity, but mostly just while Chamoun is positioning herself for the photographs, Yahoo News reported.
Chamoun currently lives in Switzerland and released a statement apologizing through her Facebook page, stating the behind-the-scenes footage was never supposed to be released, according to Yahoo News.
"I just want to make it clear to everyone who commented, shared the photos that appeared on the net in Lebanon yesterday. Yes I did photos for an Austrian ski calendar with other professional athletes 3 years ago. The photos of the photoshoot are not like the actual images that are now circulating on the net. The video and photos that you are now seeing are part of the making of, the preparation, it wasn't supposed to go public. Anyways, I want to apologize to all of you, I know that Lebanon is a conservative country and this is not the image that reflects our culture. I fully understand if you want to criticise this," Chamoun wrote on her Facebook page.
"Now that I'm at the Olympic Games, these photos that I never saw before are being shared. It is sad. All I can ask to each of you who saw this, is to stop spreading it, it will really help me focusing on what is really important now: my trainings and race."
